My grandmother would take me to Hepburn Springs to ‘take the waters’. She had been going there since she was a girl, she told me.

Well, she would ‘take the waters’ and I would help fill the bottles. I didn’t want any for myself, I thought the water tasted disgusting, but I did love visiting the region and found the walk from spring to spring through the Mineral Springs Reserve charming. Even forty years ago it felt like going back to the ‘olden days’ with the tinkling brook crossed by stone bridges and curious pumps and taps offering ‘health giving’ water from unseen, ancient underground waterways.

Not much changes for those who visit the Mineral Springs Reserve

The region of Daylesford and Hepburn Springs in Central Victoria contains Australia’s largest concentration of natural mineral springs. It was first settled during the Victorian goldrush of the mid 1800s by Italian and Swiss migrants. Their influence remains.

Today the springs still flow, visitors still come to ‘take the waters’ and, I am pleased to
advise, the experience remains as charming as I remember it to be; a ‘European Holiday’ in the Australian Bush.

Cows now graze at the site where hundreds of miners spent their days underground working the ‘Buried Rivers of Gold’

The drive to Daylesford and Hepburn Springs is only a ‘one and a bit’ scenic hour from Melbourne. So, take a little longer and visit the genuine goldrush town of Clunes before touring the less traveled old ‘Clunes to Daylesford’ road. It’s now the Buried Rivers of Gold Heritage Trail, a fascinating, sign posted, car based tour within the Parks Victoria Hepburn Regional Park.

Links
Hepburn Regional Park
Daylesford
Swiss Italian Festa