If Sunday in Hepburn Springs is for slowing right down, Saturday in Daylesford is for getting amongst it. The town is at its busiest: the bakeries have queues, Vincent Street is full of people with shopping bags and a dog on a lead, and every second table seems to be catching up over a long lunch. It's a lot of fun, as long as you know where you're going.
Daylesford started life as a gold town. Gold was found on Wombat Flat in the early 1850s, the town was surveyed as Wombat, and it was renamed Daylesford in 1855. This is Dja Dja Wurrung Country. Most of what you'll walk past today, the hotels, the bank buildings and the miners' cottages, went up in the decades that followed.
Breakfast at Cliffy's
Start on Raglan Street at Cliffy's Emporium. It opened in 1955 as a corner store run by Cliffy Hauser, who is said to have been so overstocked that he parked his truck out the front to hold the overflow. Since then it's been a bike shop and an antique shop, and it has been a café since 2001.
The shelves are still stocked like a general store, with local cheese, honey, eggs and preserves, so it doubles as a providore. For breakfast, the big local potato hash brown with bacon and eggs has a following. If you're after something lighter, grab a coffee and a pastry and head up the hill.
Get there early on a Saturday. It fills up fast.
Up Wombat Hill
From Cliffy's it's a short, steady walk up to the Wombat Hill Botanic Gardens. The land was reserved as a public garden in the early 1860s, and some of the trees are almost as old: there's an English oak from 1863, giant redwoods and huge conifers that tower over the paths. Wombat Hill is an old volcano, which is why the views are so good.
The Pioneer Memorial Tower was built in 1938. It's 77 steps to the top, and they're steep, but you get a view right across the district. Recent works have added accessible paths and restored the conservatory, which is worth a look.
If breakfast was light, Wombat Hill House, the café in the gardens' old caretaker's cottage, is run by the Lake House family and makes a lovely second stop.
Vincent Street
Walk back down to Vincent Street, Daylesford's main street, and give yourself the rest of the morning.
Paradise Bookshop fills an old bank building with room after room of new and second-hand books, records and art titles, and there are armchairs by the fire upstairs. Gewürzhaus has shelves of spices, salts and teas. There are vintage and homewares shops all the way along, and the bakeries are the reason for those queues.
If you like old buildings, the Daylesford & District Historical Society Museum opens on Saturdays, and the Convent Gallery, a short walk away on Daly Street, has seven gallery spaces, a restored chapel and gardens in a building that started life as the Gold Commissioner's residence.
Lunch by the lake
Head down the hill to Lake Daylesford. The lake was built from 1927 over old gold diggings and a Chinese market garden, and it's now the heart of the town. Walk the loop before or after lunch: it's about 2.5 kilometres, past mineral springs and the swimming jetty. Read our Lake Daylesford guide or our guide to walks around Daylesford.
There are two very different ways to do lunch here.
The Boathouse sits right on the water, with a deck in the warmer months and a cosy room in winter. Think oysters, grilled fish, pasta and local wine. It's open for lunch on Saturdays, and booking is a good idea.
For a special occasion, Lake House, on the other side of the lake, is one of the best-known restaurants in regional Victoria. The Wolf-Tasker family has run it since 1984, and it's known for its breads, house charcuterie and local produce. Book ahead.
An afternoon at the Mill Markets
Walk off lunch at the Mill Markets on Central Springs Road, about ten minutes from the centre of town. It's an enormous old mill building filled with hundreds of stalls of antiques, vintage furniture, records, books and collectables. It opens every day, entry is free, and it's very easy to lose an hour or two. There's a café inside if you need a break.
On the fourth Saturday of the month, swap this for the Daylesford Farmers Market in the morning, at the primary school on Vincent Street. It has local growers, bread, preserves and plants. See What's On for dates.
A glass of something
By late afternoon, Vincent Street has a few good places to sit down.
Winespeake is a small wine shop and bar with hundreds of bottles, many of them made with minimal intervention. You can drink in or take one home, and there's cheese and charcuterie to go with it.
Bar Merenda has moved into a two-storey building on Vincent Street and opens from Friday to Monday. Downstairs there's a wine bar with a blackboard menu and a wood-fired grill, and upstairs there's a small dining room. It's a favourite with locals, so book if you can.
For a pub drink, the Royal Hotel dates from 1856 and has a beer garden, and the Daylesford Hotel, on the corner of Burke Square, has a balcony that's perfect on a warm evening.
Dinner
For a proper French dinner, Bistro Terroir on Howe Street serves crab soufflé, beef tartare and steak frites, with a French-leaning wine list. Chef Matthew Carnell has cooked in Paris, and it shows.
For something more relaxed, the Farmers Arms first poured a beer in 1857, which makes it Daylesford's oldest pub. It's ivy-covered red brick, with its own lager, a dog-friendly beer garden and a menu of proper country cooking, from venison pot pie to coq au vin. Book on weekends.
Or keep it simple with wood-fired pizza at the Daylesford Hotel.
Make a weekend of it
Saturday in town, Sunday in Hepburn Springs. Read A slow Sunday in Hepburn Springs for the second day. If you're staying in Daylesford itself, you can walk to everything in this article and leave the car parked all weekend.
