Spa country, Victoria

If Eat, Pray, Love influenced your choice of holiday, perhaps ‘eat, walk, spa’ in Victoria could be the answer to fulfilment. Tricia Welsh reports

Hanging Rock, Macedon Ranges.

Known perhaps more as the country’s leading spa region, Daylesford boasts 72 of Victoria’s 110 documented springs and the undulating fertile farmlands that abound between Daylesford and the Macedon Ranges are now producing some of the finest regional produce in the state.

With its ever-growing mix of restaurants, galleries, spa facilities and boutiques, Daylesford is the state’s premier country destination and the nation’s premier spa area.

EAT

For many years, energetic Alla Wolf-Tasker engaged in a one-woman battle with nature and lack of local imagination. She held the fort from the kitchen of her renowned Lake House restaurant in earlier years in what she describes as ‘a food and wine wilderness’. For more than 25 years she has stuck to her guns insisting that regional, seasonal and organic is best and continues to encourage and champion local small producers. She has picked up countless gongs along the way for her superlative cuisine and country hospitality, Lake House being considered one of the best restaurants in Australia.

The region has become a foodie’s haven with most restaurants and cafes reliant on local produce for their constantly changing menus. Stand-out dining options include The Farmer’s Arms – a gastropub that boasts an atmospheric front bar full of colourful characters complete with Friday night ‘chook raffle’; Frangos & Frangos for delicious fresh fare straight from a wood-fired pizza oven; La Trattoria where tables are delightfully located under shady trees at Lavandula Lavender Farm; and the Perfect Drop Wine & Food Lounge – a converted family home that serves tasty share-plates and great local wines.

WALK

Entrepreneurial couple Dana and Gavin Ronan of bothfeet walking tours (who started with three-, four- and six-day Great Ocean Road walks), now offer a variety of walks around this picturesque region. Participants can sample various mineral waters straight from pumps strategically placed around Daylesford Lake as they make their way along the Goldfields and Wallaby Tracks and up to Wombat Hill Botanic Gardens, the highest point in town adjacent to the region’s arts-heart, the Convent Gallery, that promotes local artists throughout its rambling exhibition rooms.

Not only is it a chance to keep in shape and get to know the area better, but you also learn a little of its geography and history. ‘The area is the third largest volcanic plain in the world, the town had a population of around 12,500 with up to 45 pubs in 1865’, according to Gavin. Today forms the basis for several walks where participants are transported to various outlying points in the region, making their way back each day to their comfortable base at the Lake House.

SPAS

More than a century ago, some 100,000 visitors – mostly European immigrants, would make the journey each year to bathe in the thermal waters at the original Hepburn spa complex.

Today, more than 250,000 come annually to enjoy the modern spa facilities and specialised treatments that the spa town’s facilities offer – even authentic Japanese-style pampering at Shizuka Ryokan.

After being closed for several years for redevelopment, the new $13 million heritage-listed springs facility has reopened as the Hepburn Bathhouse & Spa. This revitalised complex cleverly blends the 1895 Edwardian bathhouse with a new architecturally designed facility complete with traditional hammam-style steam rooms and floatation pools in the true European tradition of ‘taking the waters’. With more than 30 wet and dry treatment rooms, it is one of the largest and most impressive spa facilities in Australia. Various internet packages are available.

Nearby Peppers Springs Retreat & Mineral Spa is an award-winning facility with 11 treatment rooms and exclusive water therapy zone with cold and hot pools of Hepburn natural mineral waters and several saunas. Their Ultimate Springs Indulgence package includes two nights’ accommodation, breakfast daily, dinner, lunch and several pampering treatments.

Food and wine producers

While those thermal springs bubble beneath the ground, the undulating fertile farmlands that abound between Daylesford and the Macedon Ranges are now producing some of the finest regional produce in the state.

Look for organic Wessex Saddleback pork and Shropshire lamb from Fernleigh Farms, Bullarto; European-style salamis, hams, sausages, prosciutto and more from family-run Istra Smallgoods at Musk; and smoked trout paté, whole smoked and fresh trout, pasture-fed lamb at Tuki in Smeaton.

Outstanding local wineries include Hanging Rock for its exceptional sparkling Macedon, its Jim Jim sauvignon blanc and Heathcote shiraz; Curly Flat for multi-award winning chardonnay and pinot noir; Cobaw Ridge, a small hands-on winery producing award-winning estate-grown wines including the spicy savoury Italian varietal, legrein – the first to be commercialised in Australia; Granite Hills where second-generation vigneron/winemaker Llew Knight crafts outstanding peppery shiraz and iconic cool climate rieslings; and Captains Creek Organic Wines where the May brothers produce the only organic wines in the region.

Local growers, vignerons, chefs, restaurateurs, provedores, publicans and suppliers have banded together to produce A Tasty Little Pocket Guide showing the wealth and depth of gastronomic produce in the area.

At Kyneton, the Piper Street precinct has developed as a country destination in itself with innovative specialty food outlets, appealing lifestyle boutiques and all manner of exciting dining facilities from cosy cafes to gastropubs such as The Royal George.

Visit: www.visitvictoria.com/dmr; www.bothfeet.com.au; www.hepburnbathhouse.com; www.lakehouse.com.au