Best towns to visit on a road trip From Sydney to Melbourne

Here’s how to make the most of an inland road trip between Sydney and Melbourne.

Driving the route from Sydney to Melbourne is a rite of passage for most Australians. Since I moved from Victoria to NSW, it is also a trip I have had the pleasure of undergoing several times over the years.

At around nine-and-a-half hours one way, driving the Hume highway in one go is ill-advised – especially when you can take a detour and get to know some of Australia’s greatest regional towns along the way. So next time you find yourself plugging the route into your GPS, consider a stop at one (or more) of these eight places – starting chronologically from Sydney.

Goulburn

The grand inland city of Goulburn (it was in fact Australia’s first inland city) is an end-point in itself, layering contemporary food and wine experiences upon a rich and colourful rural heritage.

It has historic waterworks and a rail centre, a self-guided heritage tour. It’s also surrounded by bushland, farms and wetlands. To explore it all in detail, find the perfect two-day itinerary here.

On your way out, head to the tiny hamlet of Collector just off the Federal Highway towards Canberra. The Bushranger Hotel, best known for the infamous shooting of Constable Nelson by outlaw Ben Hall and his gang in 1865, is in the centre of town.

Goulburn main street — The famed streets of Goulburn.

Eat: Goulburn’s gastronomic heart culminates at Bryant’s Pies. This may look like your typical regional bakery, however once in the door (queues are common), you’ll find a famous selection of pies, sandwiches, freshly baked bread, sky-high muffins and excellent coffee.

Stay: Step back in time at the charming Railway Barracks, built in 1935 for the town’s first train drivers.

Yass

Three hours south-west of Sydney, through the stunning scenery of the Southern Tablelands, is the picturesque town of Yass. You may recognise this place from its starring role in a wholesome episode of Netflix’s Queer Eye, but there is more to Yass than just its fabulous name.

Grand Victorian and Federation buildings flank its wide main street, complete with quaint boutiques, former bank buildings, an elegant courthouse, quality cafes and restaurants that serve local produce in droves.

The famous Banjo Patterson Park commemorates the bush poet. He famously spent some of his early years in the Yass Valley and later bought a property here so his children could experience a similar country childhood to his. Take a walk around and you’ll soon see why.

Yass valley from above — Meander through the magical Yass valley.

Eat: Finish a busy day at Clementine, the iconic small-batch bakery owned by Brooke Sainsbery and Adam Bantock.

Stay: Choose from one of 50 design-driven rooms at the Abobe Murrumbateman.

Abode Murrumbateman. — An accommodation gem in the heart of Murrumbateman.

Need tips, more detail or itinerary ideas tailored to you? Ask AT.

Jugiong

You’ll encounter many roadside signs on a drive down the Hume Highway. Follow the one directing you to Jugiong, home of the swanky Sir George Pub.

After two years’ worth of renovations, the pub (which was built in 1852) has recently reopened, and the reimagined venue now houses a restaurant, heritage-listed accommodation, sourdough bakery and beer garden. It’s a worthy pit-stop all on its own.

While you’re in town, sample some local drops at the Jugiong Wine Cellar. It initially began as a way to showcase the 190 hectares of nearby vines, but quickly evolved into a cellar door and store that offers travellers a taste of the best wines produced throughout southern New South Wales.

Wagga Wagga

A few years ago, Wagga Wagga was little more than just another weird and wonderfully named Aussie town. But these days, the land of many crows has transformed into a cosmopolitan regional jaunt offering boutique stays, quality coffee, gourmet restaurants, fine wines and rich cultural experiences.

For a fully-fledged travel guide to Wagga Wagga, head here.

Eat: For a quick fix, the Trail Street Coffee Shop is a bit of a local institution. Alternatively, 25 minutes north-west of Wagga, the tiny village of Coolamon is drawing droves of dairy-loving day-trippers thanks to the café at Coolamon Cheese. Go for the excellent cheese, stay for the excellent lunch fare and well-chosen local Riverina wines.

Stay: The architecturally-designed eco huts on Kimo Estate are a destination in their own right.

Kimo Estate among the landscape — The architecturally-designed eco huts on Kimo Estate.

Holbrook

A detour off the Hume in south central NSW rewards with the naval heritage town of Holbrook. The main drawcard here is the HMAS Otway: a 90-metre submarine dominates the townscape. Learn all about it (and more) at the Submarine Museum and the adjacent commemorative park.

Down the road, the heritage-listed National Museum of Australian Pottery houses over 2,000 treasures to peruse. The collection includes rare antiques made by the convict potter Jonathan Leak, whose few surviving pieces are the earliest marked pottery produced in Australia.

Houlbrook submarine statue — The star of the Houlbrook show.

Eat: Baking since 1899, the Holbrook Bakery is a popular hub and a quintessential frozen-in-time type food establishment.

Stay: I have spent many a night chatting to friendly blow-ins at the Holbrook Skye Motel. It’s cheap, cheerful and everything you’d expect from a regional accommodation offering.

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Albury

As far as border towns go, Albury is a heavy-hitter. It’s one of the country’s most productive agricultural areas, offering up the perfect bite-sized town filled with scenery, food and passionate locals.

While there are plenty of appeasing ways to fill your itinerary, an afternoon at the Murray Art Museum (one of Australia’s best regional galleries) is the perfect starting point for gaining an understanding of the region. The vibrant space features a permanent collection and a regular rotating catalogue of exhibitions by local and international artists.

Albury's Murray Art Museum. — Albury’s Murray Art Museum.

Eat: The uber-stylish Blacksmith Provedore has opened a second iteration of its Mulwala restaurant in Albury. This pizza restaurant and bar serves delicious, digestible and honest seasonal fare in a relaxed atmosphere.

Blacksmith Provedore Albury — The uber-stylish Blacksmith Provedore.

Stay: Head to Circa 1928 for the night. This boutique spa hotel is housed in a former Art Deco bank building close to the town’s botanic gardens.

Beechworth

Often described as Victoria’s most beautiful town, there’s a lot to wax lyrical about in beguiling Beechworth. This non-negotiable detour will reward with historic honey granite buildings built on gold rush wealth and steeped in Ned Kelly legend, alongside a booming food and wine scene.

Wander its two main streets, Ford Street and Camp Street, and while away an afternoon bundled into its cosy cafés and restaurants or sipping and swirling at one of its cellar doors. For all the specifics, head to our Beechworth travel guide here.

Beechworth VIC — Stroll the historic streets of Beechworth.

Eat: Provenance proudly sits in an old bank built in 1856, and consistently receives Good Food Guide acclaim. Head chef Michael Ryan combines his Japanese-inspired style with local produce to deliver a degustation that people travel here just to experience.

Stay: Fancy something a bit different? At Beechworth Wildlife Stays you can glamp on 2.5 acres of bushland and, in the day, help feed the farm animals and ogle at Billy the crocodile and the resident python.

Nagambie

Wine, waterways, wetlands and wildlife await only 90 minutes from Melbourne in Nagambie. The charming bush town, with a population of just 1200, sits at the southern end of the Goulburn Valley. While there is plenty to do on land (the Nagambie Farmers Market, the Doll Museum, Black Caviar statue), the townscape is dominated by the impossibly picturesque Lake Nagambie, which lies adjacent to the main street.

Take to the water and be surrounded by abundant birdlife, native plants and local wildlife. Water skiing, speed boating, rowing and yachting are all leisurely ways to pass the time here.

boats on Lake Nagambie., — Life on Lake Nagambie.,

Eat: Tahbilk Wines is a must-do in Nagambie. This fifth-generation estate has roots dating back to 1860. Visit this destination winery to sample some rare Rhone valley varietals, such as Marsanne and Mourvedre, and to dine at the cafe that champions local produce and gazes over serene wetlands.

Stay: Mitchelton Winery offers its own onsite accommodation with the same impeccable attention to detail as its bottles. Architecturally designed, this visually spectacular hotel retains a contemporary flair without damaging the gentle green landscape that surrounds it.

Located just an hour north-west of Melbourne, the largely undiscovered Macedon Ranges quietly pours some of Australia’s finest cool-climate wines and serves up some of Victoria’s best food.

Mention the Macedon Ranges and most people will think of day spas and mineral springs around Daylesford, cosy weekends away in the countryside or the famous Hanging Rock (of enigmatic picnic fame). Or they won’t have heard of the Macedon Ranges at all.

But this cool-climate destination has been inconspicuously building a profile as a high-quality food and wine region and is beginning to draw serious attention from oenophiles and epicureans alike.

The rise of Macedon Ranges wine

liquid gold barrels at Kyneton Ridge Estate Winery — Barrels of liquid gold at Kyneton Ridge Estate Winery. (Image: Chloe Smith Photography)

With elevations ranging from 300 to 800 metres, Macedon Ranges vineyards are among the highest in the country. This altitude, combined with significant day/night temperature swings, makes for a slow ripening season, in turn nurturing wines that embody elegance and structure. Think crisp chardonnays, subtle yet complex pinot noirs and delicate sparkling wines, along with niche varietals, such as gamay and nebbiolo.

Despite the region’s natural advantages – which vary from estate to estate, as each site embodies unique terroir depending on its position in relation to the Great Dividing Range, soil make-up and altitude – the Macedon Ranges has remained something of an insider’s secret. Unlike Victoria’s Yarra Valley or Mornington Peninsula, you won’t find large tour buses here and there’s no mass marketing drawing crowds.

Many of the 40-odd wineries are family-run operations with modest yields, meaning the wineries maintain a personal touch (if you visit a cellar door, you’ll likely chat to the owner or winemaker themselves) and a tight sales circle that often doesn’t go far beyond said cellar door. And that’s part of the charm.

Though wines from the Macedon Ranges are just starting to gain more widespread recognition in Australia, the first vines were planted in the 1860s, with a handful of operators then setting up business in the 1970s and ’80s. The industry surged again in the 1990s and early 2000s with the entry of wineries, such as Mount Towrong, which has an Italian slant in both its wine and food offering, and Curly Flat, now one of the largest estates.

Meet the new generation of local winemakers

the Clydesdale barn at Paramoor. — The Clydesdale barn at Paramoor. (Image: Chloe Smith Photography)

Then, within the last 15 years, a new crop of vignerons like Andrew Wood at Kyneton Ridge Estate, whose vineyard in 2024 was the first in the Macedon Ranges to be certified by Sustainable Winegrowing Australia; Geoff Plahn and Samantha Reid at Paramoor, who have an impressive cellar door with a roaring fire and studded leather couches in an old Clydesdale barn; and Ollie Rapson and Renata Morello at Lyons Will, who rapidly expanded a small vineyard to focus on top-shelf riesling, gamay, pinot noir and chardonnay, have taken ownership of local estates.

Going back to the early days, Llew Knight’s family was one of the pioneers of the 1970s, replacing sheep with vines at Granite Hills when the wool industry dwindled. Knight is proud of the fact that all their wines are made with grapes from their estate, including a light, peppery shiraz (some Macedon wineries purchase fruit from nearby warmer areas, such as Heathcote, particularly to make shiraz) and a European-style grüner veltliner. And, as many other wineries in the region do, he relies on natural acid for balance, rather than an additive, which is often required in warmer regions. “It’s all about understanding and respecting your climate to get the best out of your wines,” he says.

farm animals atKyneton Ridge Estate — Curious residents at Kyneton Ridge Estate. (Image: Chloe Smith Photography)

Throughout the Macedon Ranges, there’s a growing focus on sustainability and natural and low-intervention wines, with producers, such as Brian Martin at Hunter Gatherer making waves in regenerative viticulture. Martin previously worked in senior roles at Australia’s largest sparkling winemaking facility, and now applies that expertise and his own nous to natural, hands‑off, wild-fermented wines, including pét‑nat, riesling and pinot noir. “Wild fermentation brings more complexity,” he says. “Instead of introducing one species of yeast, you can have thousands and they add different characteristics to the wine.”

the vineyard at Kyneton Ridge Estate Winery — The estate’s vineyard, where cool-climate grapes are grown. (Image: Chloe Smith Photography)

Most producers also focus on nurturing their grapes in-field and prune and pick by hand, thus avoiding the introduction of impurities and the need to meddle too much in the winery. “The better the quality of the fruit, the less you have to interfere with the natural winemaking process,” says Wood.

Given the small yields, there’s also little room for error, meaning producers place immense focus on quality. “You’re never going to compete in the middle [in a small region] – you’ve got to aim for the top,” says Curly Flat owner Jeni Kolkka. “Big wineries try to do things as fast as possible, but we’re in no rush,” adds Troy Walsh, owner and winemaker at Attwoods. “We don’t use commercial yeasts; everything is hand-harvested and everything is bottled here, so we bottle only when we’re ready, not when a big truck arrives.” That’s why, when you do see a Macedon Ranges product on a restaurant wine list, it’s usually towards the pointy end.

Come for the wine, stay for the food

pouring sauce onto a dish at Lake HouseDaylesford — Dining at Lake House Daylesford is a treat. (Image: Chloe Smith Photography)

If wine is the quiet achiever of the Macedon Ranges, then food is its not-so-secret weapon. In fact, the area has more hatted restaurants than any other region in Victoria. A pioneer of the area’s gourmet food movement is region cheerleader Alla Wolf-Tasker, culinary icon and founder of Daylesford’s Lake House.

For more than three decades, Wolf-Tasker has championed local producers and helped define what regional fine dining can look like in Australia. Her influence is palpable, not just in the two-hatted Lake House kitchen, but in the broader ethos of the region’s dining scene, as a wave of high-quality restaurants have followed her lead to become true destination diners.

the Midnight Starling restaurant in Kyneton Ridge Estate Winery — The hatted Midnight Starling restaurant is located in Kyneton. (Image: Chloe Smith Photography)

It’s easy to eat well, whether at other hatted restaurants, such as Midnight Starling in the quaint town of Kyneton, or at the wineries themselves, like Le Bouchon at Attwoods, where Walsh is inspired by his time working in France in both his food offering and winemaking.

The beauty of dining and wine touring in the Macedon Ranges is that it feels intimate and unhurried. You’re likely to meet the winemaker, hear about the trials of the latest vintage firsthand, and taste wines that never make it to city shelves. And that’s worth getting out of the city for – even if it is just an hour down the road.

Delicate dishes on the menu at Midnight Starling. (Image: Chloe Smith Photography)

A traveller’s checklist

Staying there

the accommodation at Cleveland Estate, Macedon Ranges — Stay at the Cleveland Estate. (Image: Chloe Smith Photography)

Soak up vineyard views from Cleveland Estate near Lancefield, embrace retro charm at Kyneton Springs Motel or indulge in lakeside luxury at the Lake House.

Eating there

Enjoy a four-course menu at the one-hatted Surly Goat in Hepburn Springs, Japanese-inspired fare at Kuzu in Woodend or unpretentious fine dining at Mount Monument, which also has a sculpture park.

Drinking there

wine tasting at PassingClouds Winery, Macedon Ranges — A tasting at Passing Clouds Winery. (Image: Chloe Smith Photography)

Settle in for a tasting at Boomtown in Castlemaine, sample local drops at the cosy Woodend Cellar & Bar or wine-hop around the many cellar doors, such as Passing Clouds.

the Boomtown Winery and Cellar Bar signage — Boomtown Winery and Cellar Bar. (Image: Chloe Smith Photography)

Playing there

a scenic river in Castlemaine — Idyllic scenes at Castlemaine. (Image: Chloe Smith Photography)

Wander through the seasonal splendour of Forest Glade Gardens, hike to the summit of Hanging Rock, or stroll around the tranquil Sanatorium Lake.

purple flowers hanging from a tree — Purple flowers hanging from a tree. (Image: Chloe Smith Photography)

The best towns to visit on a road trip from Sydney to Melbourne