Melburnians share with us the suburbs they would most like to call home.
- The super-secret suburb you’ve never heard of
- ’70s charm in Melbourne’s closest treechange suburb
- A treechange has never looked this good
It’s interesting to discover a suburb first by bike: it gives the roads and paths a certain gravitas and history when you return by car.
I discovered Warburton after being given a last-minute entry into a serious road cycling event called the Giro della Donna. The race finished at the top of nearby Mount Donna Buang (1250m) – hence the Donna part of its Italian roots name. We’d already covered some 100 kilometres of the surrounding hills and riverside trails. Brutal but beautiful.
Thankfully, there’s an easier way to discover Warburton: a train ride to Lilydale gets you to the start of the Lilydale to Warburton rail trail, fondly known as the Warby Trail. It’s a 40 kilometre rumble into gravelly country life.
Warburton is known for its peace, quiet and laid-back attitude. Photo: Wayne Taylor
The abandoned train line leads cyclists, walkers and horse riders through the same towns that you pass driving the Warburton Highway: Mount Evelyn; Wandin (for strawberries and blueberries, and to reminisce about a certain country vet TV program); Seville (for a play in the free community water park); Woori Yallock; Launching Place; Yarra Junction and nearly-there Millgrove.
For Melburnians priced out of Melbourne and even, now, priced out of tree-change towns like Kyneton and Castlemaine, Warburton is an affordable option 90 minutes from the CBD. Family homes on treed blocks come in at the $350,000-$400,000 mark.
It’s also dotted with residential blocks of land, some just a minute walk from the centre of town. With some architectural ambition (the hills are steep!), and the right nous with planning permits, there’s scope for some serious expressions of individuality.
Wellness retreats are also popular in the area. Photo: Wayne Taylor
And people like that about this place. A local real estate agent tells me that it can take 20 years for council to notice and take up issue with a no-permit-issued building in the ‘hood. And when they do, the community may even get behind the offender. Take local character Boinga Bob’s unique timber “house of cards” construction behind the new skate park – pretty much in the centre of town. Backpackers bring Bob beer and profess their admiration on the artist’s Facebook page.
There are smaller delights in town, too, like the Airbnb shack that started the Shacky phenomenon.
Warburton itself is a cute-as-pie town with the Yarra River running right through it. Unfortunately most of the shops turn their backs on the river, though they still stock and sell tubes for rafting down it. A dip in the Yarra here, before it winds some 70km to Melbourne, is bliss.
The Warburton Highway is also the beginning of the road for exploring. Photo: Wayne Taylor
Warburton’s also a town of churches. Some of us may know Warburton as a place where one (or one’s parents’, in my case) goes to “regain one’s sanity”. My mum was a frequent retreater at the since sold and closed Warburton Health Resort.
Though my idea of a retreat is a spa sanctuary with chocolate (dark, of course) on the pillow, the usual experience of those attending was, like the Seventh-Day Adventists who ran it, abstinence.
These days if you hit Warburton on a weekend, you can see where it’s headed: up hill on two wheels. There’s Cog Bike Cafe, right on the Warburton Rail Trail, the 30km-long O’Shannassy Aqueduct Trail through protected forest, and of course the challenge of cycling the 17km from Warburton up Donna. More extensive bike trails are planned.
The dark chocolate, please, at the spa sanctuaries. Photo: Wayne Taylor
Oh, the La La connection? Follow La La Avenue to its end and you’ll find the 3km round trip walking trail to La La Falls, a trickling waterfall surrounded by rainforest. Here in Warburton, rather appropriately, La La means welcome, welcome.
Five things you didn’t know about Warburton
- The Information Centre, right besides the water wheel, sells locally-made products and is packed with info on local walks and rides.
- Weet-Bix were made here from the 1930s until the Sanitarium factory closed in the 1990s. Plans to turn the gorgeous building on the Yarra into Edgewater Resort have been circulating for over a decade.
- You can buy up local goodies, including locally-roasted coffee beans, each Friday evening until April 7 at the Summer Produce Market by Cog Bike Cafe.
- There are tobogganing trails on Donna Buang. They’re usually ready for trying in May.
- Earlybird tickets ($145) to this November’s Giro Della Donna are on sale now through cyclingtips.com