Braeside Cafe, Mount Macedon, Victoria

An hour's journey north of Melbourne and you can find a truly rare sight in Victoria... a mountain. Well, a large hill at least. The Victorian lands are so flat that at times you almost forget hills exist. To give you an idea of just how flat the West of Melbourne is, you can see the city scape from our house, which is 30km away. So when they do have a rocky outcrop of any magnitude to shout about, you can forgive them for getting a little excited and proclaiming it a mountain. Point in case Mount Macedon, which rises to just over one thousand metres and whilst no way near Alpine scale, is still mightily impressive as you approach it from the Calder Freeway.


It was our first visit to this National Park, and normally we would be armed with hiking boots, route maps, and countless other walking paraphernalia ready to explore all she could throw at us. Sadly I am a little laid up with an injured foot at the moment, so we were settling for a scenic drive and afternoon tea at the Braeside Cafe.

The Braeside cafe is on the right as you approach Mount Macedon village, around one and a half kilometres down a winding country lane sandwiched between some mightily impressive country estates. This is where some of the earlier settlers chose to build their retreats, in the midst of  the amazing views and milder climate, and they have left a memorable legacy.

The Braeside cafe is more cosy and rambling than grand and stately. Its wooden building scattered around a large plot of shady woodland and gardens. The building that houses the cafe resembles a family home, and you really feel like you're intruding as you step in. There is a welcome log fire blazing away, with sofas and tables filling every nook and cranny. It's quite a small setting, and on this wintry holiday weekend, every seat is taken by day trippers enjoying the warm atmosphere. We were asked to wait a little while by the waitress, who seemed to be very ably managing the all the tables by herself. This gave us time to check the small but tempting menu out. We were given seats on a back table with a large window overlooking the back garden, which was alive with birds of every species.

We settled on Gruyere Cheese and Onion Tarts, which were delicious. We followed this by afternoon tea with homemade scones with jam and cream, which we took on the sofa by the log fire. The more we sat there and relaxed, the more the cafe felt like a family home. It was only when I went to settle the bill that I met the owners and all was revealed. Indeed it was their family home, which they normally only open on Thursdays and Fridays as a cafe both for passing trade and to serve their B&B guests. They had only opened as a one off today for the holiday weekend, so we had been fortunate. It was a stroke of luck, as you couldn't find a more welcoming lunch stop, and we hadn't checked for opening times before we left.

After lunch we drove up the Mountain to enjoy the views, only to discover that it had been encased in an icy mist when we reached the summit. Ah well, an adventure we would have to leave for another day, which would give us another fine excuse to visit Braeside cafe.