Famous in the Aussie gold rush era, Daylesford, located ninety minutes or so north-west of Melbourne, in the foothills of the Great Dividing Range, is now more synonymous with mineral springs, day spas, and ChillOut festivals!
We lucked out and managed to book a two-night stay on the same long weekend as the ChillOut Festival, the largest Country Queer Pride event in regional Australia. It was a “Boots and Bling” theme, and Daylesford understood the assignment!
The tiny town was awash with glitter and rainbows, and fabulous drag queens stalked the streets in towering platforms, blingy blouses, and sequined shorts. Every shop blasted gay anthems, “Don’t stop me now,” “Dancing Queen,” “It’s raining men” and it was impossible not to sing along (badly) and bust out a few Elaine Benes moves.
While it would have been super fun to stay downtown, we had accommodation booked about 7k’s out of Daylesford, in Wheatsheaf, off the beaten track, down dirt roads with names like Kangaroo Drive and Wallaby Road. We drove deep into the bowels of Wombat Forest, traversing wooded areas that looked like TV forests that people ran terrified through in the middle of the night, chased by axe wielding serial killers.
Down a long dirt driveway, our cottage emerged in a halo of light, amidst an Aussie bush backdrop. We were literally off-grid here. No WIFI (big yikes for Gen Z guests), no TV, just simple, elegant Japanese-inspired digs with no distractions from the appreciation of mother nature, her eerie whispering trees, and the resident wallabies.
There’s a trail walk out the back of the accommodation, which our hosts informed went through to the main road, cross it, go left, and look for a tiny, unmarked track where you could continue a longer walk through Wombat Forest. What could possibly go wrong? After having recently turned an 8k hike into a 16k one in the Brisbane Ranges National Park due to contradictory signage, we deferred to the more moderate and well-signed Domino Rail Trail.
We started the 12K return hike at the Lyonville Radio Springs Hotel, with note to self that it may facilitate an ice-cold brewski at trails end. The trail is a flat track, following the old railway line from the Trentham heritage-listed railway station through the Wombat Forest and culminating in Lyonville. It was a picturesque, peaceful, mostly shady trail through Eucalypt woodland.
Lunch at the Lyonville Radio Springs hotel was a little time warp…just a jump to the left of the Domino trail. Eclectically decorated with art deco and antiques, old dial up telephones interspersed with the contents of a barrel of monkeys arbitrarily hanging off the overhead glass rack, kids drawings, that creepy monkey toy with the cymbals that will meet you in the burning fires of hell, ancient insipid landscapes, sepia framed photos of random peeps, old postcards.
Napery as old as Nanna adorned tables that were poked into every nook and cranny and topped with butcher paper (what, no crayons?). An antique child’s spinning top perched on a picture rail amidst steins and curious knick knacks, everything vaguely familiar in a purple velvet fog kind of way. It was a delicious dogs breakfast and a walk down mems lane. Oh, and the food was #bloodyawesome. Go there!
We felt like we spent a week in Daylesford and surrounds that weekend! So many boujee restaurants, quirky pubs, antique and collectible shops. Impressive historic buildings, funky art galleries, the magnificent Wombat State Forest, Domino Trail – so much to do and so little time.
So, is Daylesford punching…the little town that could? In our eyes, it was the little town that did! We will be back.
