On the last leg of our trip home from Bendigo to Melbourne we paid a visit to Hepburn Springs which is a resort town set in the middle of the largest concentration of mineral springs in Australia. At 48 km northeast of Ballarat, this pretty little town had a population of 368 at the last census. The town is named after Captain John Hepburn who was an early squatter of central Victoria.
As it had been many years since we had last visited the area, we were keen to reacquaint ourselves with the delicious and varied flavours of the mineral water. Each spring has an info board describing the qualities and mineral content of the water. You could taste the difference between each, even though the distance between them was not great.
The springs are all located within the near vicinity of the car park except for one that required a couple of kilometer hike along a beautiful bush track. It was worth the effort, as we thought the water here was the nicest.
After returning to the car, we enjoyed a picnic lunch while watching all the birdlife around us. Then it was time to pack up and head home. The 6 days we spent in the Bendigo region was filled with lots of activities and things to see. We told ourselves that in future we would try not to drive through a town without stopping to take a look at what it had to offer.
Bendigo and its surrounds were one of those situations.
