This heritage sleeper train will take you from Melbourne to wine time

I’m standing on an overgrown platform at the unlikely sounding locality of Muckleford, watching a train glide past. First come three chunky locomotives (“Y-class” for the technically minded), then a varied collection of heritage sleeper carriages, a lounge car, and a dining car. This, in total, is the Winelander – the moving heart of a rail cruise staged by 707 Operations, the latest in its series of weekend train expeditions out of Melbourne.

There’s no better way to do a winery tour than with a designated train driver.

We’re standing at this old branch line station (incidentally where Kate Winslet arrived in the movie The Dressmaker) to take photos of the unusual set of locos and carriages, and we’ve been joined from all over by snap-happy rail fans. But trainspotter highlights aside, this weekend is all about the pleasures of wine, historic goldfields towns and relaxation aboard our home on wheels.

We departed Melbourne’s Southern Cross Station on a Friday night, after an introductory dinner at the Savoy Hotel across the road. On this journey, we have opted for single sleeper compartments across the corridor from each other, removing the need to clamber onto a top bunk. But twin compartments are also available, in carriages which once belonged to the Southern Aurora (Sydney to Melbourne) and Overland (Melbourne to Adelaide) trains.

Lunch by the barrels.

Our single compartments are a miracle of design, just big enough to fit a washbasin alongside a bed, which flips up during the day to become a comfortable armchair and footrest. At one end of the carriage is a toilet, with showers at the other; though double-berth compartments have their own bathrooms.

After a guided tour of Castlemaine on the Saturday morning, we depart along a branch line for the historic town of Maldon, pausing at Muckleford on the way. From Maldon, we’re bused to Daylesford for a delicious lunch at Hotel Frangos, after which we join another train along the Daylesford Spa Country Railway. It takes us through pretty green farmland and a forest of eucalypts and ferns, alluring in a light mist. At Bullarto, we step onto the platform of the highest station still in use at Victoria, at 747 metres above sea level. It’s a delightful timber structure I could imagine living in.

Wine country.

On the way back to Daylesford, the train halts at a siding for Passing Clouds Winery, a short walk up a slope from the tracks. Here, we enjoy a tasting of its distinctive cool climate wines (“We get snow here,” one of the staff tells me) in an ambient tasting room with glasses perched on upended barrels. Dinner is back at Castlemaine’s Railway Hotel, the Winelander’s carriages visible from the beer garden in which we enjoy our meals (a choice of beef pie or chicken).

Sleep comes more easily on the second night aboard the stationary train in Maldon, and after breakfast in the dining car on Sunday morning, we wander through the remarkably preserved township via a self-guided heritage walk. The sun has finally broken out, and it’s remarkable how much of Maldon has escaped demolition or rebuilding since its heyday in the gold rush of the 19th century.

On board for wine tasting.

After returning to Castlemaine, a bus takes us to the nearby Harcourt Valley Vineyards, a lovely location with lawn and picnic tables. Lunch is served at long tables sharing space with wine barrels, inside the cellar-door building with its attractive stone walls.

A day at the vineyards.

Aside from these outings, we passengers spend a lot of our time in the lounge car, chatting with each other over drinks. It’s a mostly domestic crowd, demonstrating something I’ve noticed about groups of Australian travellers – we muck in well together, forging an instant social bond. With afternoon tea and some excellent country bakery scones in the offing, I relax over a drink and enjoy this lazy Sunday arvo on the rails, as we trundle back to Melbourne.

THE DETAILS

STAY
The Savoy Hotel on Little Collins offers stylishly renovated art deco accommodation near Melbourne’s Southern Cross station. Rooms from $320 a night. See savoyhotelmelbourne.com

RIDE
707 Operations runs regular rail tours to regional Victoria; sleeper fares from $900 a person.
See slowrailjourneys.com.au

The writer was a guest of 707 Operations.