Armed with a capped daily fare of $5.70 — $2.85 for concession holders, and a deal that runs until 1 January 2027 — Melbourne is the launchpad for one of Australia's best-value holidays. V/Line runs five regional lines out of Southern Cross Station, and every one of them delivers you somewhere interesting in under two hours. Victoria covers just three per cent of Australia's landmass, which makes a multi-town rail trip genuinely easy: hop off, eat well, wander, stay a night or two, then jump back on.

The Bendigo line is the star route, calling at Woodend, Macedon, Kyneton and Castlemaine. Woodend, an hour from the CBD, is a gold-rash-era town of about 7,000 people with wide streets and country-town calm — and, surprisingly, Kuzu Izakaya, a Japanese diner in a cottage behind a wine shop serving oyster shooters and char-grilled wagyu sirloin. Kyneton, twenty minutes further, is a small town with an outsized antiques and art scene along Piper Street, plus Botanik, a bottle shop stocked with European vermouths, amaro and herbal liqueurs. Castlemaine, 90 minutes from Melbourne, has become a creative satellite of the city: wine bars, pizzerias and Vietnamese and Latin American eateries behind historic facades, with The Mill — an 1870s wool mill turned precinct of boutiques, roasters, cheesemakers and bakers — at its centre, and Shedshaker brewery pouring live music most nights.

Bendigo itself, the former gold boom town with vintage sightseeing trams and a tulip reputation, punches above its weight for food: four restaurants hold hats from the Australian Good Food Guide. Bendigo Guided Tours runs a monthly progressive dinner moving through all four — appetisers at Alium Dining, zucchini flowers at Terrae, wagyu at The Woodhouse and a deconstructed lamington at Le Foyer.

For a worthwhile detour off the rail map, Heathcote is under an hour from Bendigo by bus and home to some of Victoria's boldest red wines, made by names like Jasper Hill and Syrahmi. Chauncy, a French-leaning fine diner run by ex-Grossi Florentino chef Louis Naepels and sommelier Tess Murray, opens for lunch Friday to Monday and sources produce from local farms or its own grounds. If you linger too long there and then at Palling Bros Brewery, the local pizza-and-kebab shop has your back.

Overnight options are reasonably priced too: Hotel Ernest in Bendigo from $295, Cambria at the Heathcote Wine Hub from $297 for a two-bedroom apartment, and Castlemaine's Northern Arts Hotel from $185.

This is a trip for travellers who like their holidays low-cost, low-stress and food-forward — city dwellers wanting a day trip, or out-of-towners stringing together a week of country towns without a car. The economics are almost absurd: a full day of travel for less than the price of a coffee and a snack, with trams, kangaroos, wool-mill breweries and hatted restaurants waiting at the other end.