The best things to do in Yarra Valley start with its wine, more than 80 wineries famous for cool-climate pinot noir, chardonnay and sparkling, but the valley also has a wildlife sanctuary, a steam railway, gin and chocolate makers, hot-air balloon flights and forest drives, all about an hour from Melbourne. We spent a weekend here while we were living in Australia, and this guide covers 15 things to do, a two-day plan, where to eat and stay, and when to go.
Key Takeaways
- Yes, it’s worth visiting. Excellent wine, food and forest scenery sit an hour from the city, and it works as a day trip or a relaxed weekend.
- Book your tastings. The bigger cellar doors fill up on weekends, and many now take reservations or charge a small fee.
- It’s not only wine. Healesville Sanctuary, Puffing Billy, the Chocolaterie and the Black Spur drive make a weekend work for non-drinkers and families too.
- Stay a night. Two days let you add dinner at a winery, sunset from Mount Dandenong and a slower pace, instead of rushing back to Melbourne.
- Drive or take a tour. Public transport barely reaches the cellar doors, so a car, a designated driver or a winery tour is the easy way round.
Yarra Valley at a Glance
| Where | About 60 km (37 miles) north-east of Melbourne |
| Drive from Melbourne | About an hour via the Eastern Freeway and Maroondah Highway |
| Known for | Pinot noir, chardonnay, sparkling wine, farm-gate produce |
| Best time to visit | March to May for harvest and autumn colour; winter for fireplaces and red wine |
| How long | A day trip covers the highlights; a weekend lets you slow down |
| Getting around | Car, winery tour or designated driver |
Here are all 15 of our picks side by side, with the area, roughly how long each takes and who it suits, before the details.
| Thing to do | Area | Time needed | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. Tasting at De Bortoli | Dixons Creek | 1 to 2 hours | Wine and cheese lovers |
| 2. Sparkling at Domaine Chandon | Coldstream | 1 hour | Bubbles, views |
| 3. Oakridge and Coldstream Hills | Coldstream | 2 hours | Pinot noir, lunch with a view |
| 4. Yering Station | Yering | 1 hour | History, a big cellar door |
| 5. TarraWarra Estate and Museum of Art | Healesville | 2 hours | Art and wine |
| 6. Dinner in Healesville | Healesville | 2 hours | Casual food and wine |
| 7. Beer and cider at Meletos | Coldstream | 1 hour | Non-wine drinkers |
| 8. The Yarra Valley Chocolaterie | Yarra Glen | 1 hour | Families, sweet tooths |
| 9. Healesville Sanctuary | Healesville | Half day | Australian wildlife |
| 10. Puffing Billy steam train | Dandenong Ranges | Half day | Families, heritage |
| 11. Hot-air balloon flight | Across the valley | Half day (sunrise) | Special occasions |
| 12. Four Pillars Gin | Healesville | 1 hour | Gin lovers |
| 13. Sunset from Mount Dandenong | Dandenong Ranges | 1 hour | Views over Melbourne |
| 14. Sugarloaf Reservoir and the Black Spur | Christmas Hills to Narbethong | 2 to 3 hours | Scenic drives, picnics |
| 15. The Warburton redwoods and rail trail | Warburton | Half day | Walkers and cyclists |
Is the Yarra Valley Worth Visiting?
Yes. Very few wine regions in the world sit this close to a major city, and the Yarra Valley combines world-class cool-climate wine with genuinely good food, forest scenery and wildlife. What it doesn’t do well is shopping or nightlife, and you’ll need a car, a driver or a tour to get between cellar doors. For a weekend of eating, drinking and slowing down, it’s hard to beat, and it’s the first place we’d send a friend visiting Melbourne.
The Best Things to Do in Yarra Valley
These are the things to do in Yarra Valley we’d put on any first visit, starting with the tastings we loved and finishing with the forest.
1. Taste Wine and Cheese at De Bortoli
De Bortoli was our favourite cellar door. Its tasting runs through a long list of wines, and you can pair it with cheese from the cheese shop inside the cellar door. The staff were friendly and knowledgeable, and an hour and a fair bit of money later we’d found a new favourite wine. There’s also a restaurant with views over the vineyards if you want to stay for lunch.
2. Sip Sparkling at Domaine Chandon
Domaine Chandon, the Australian outpost of Moet & Chandon, is the valley’s sparkling-wine icon. The views from its tasting room over the vines are some of the best in the region, and the cellar door explains how the traditional method works. Book ahead at weekends.
3. Oakridge and Coldstream Hills
Along the Maroondah Highway at Coldstream, Oakridge pours excellent chardonnay and pinot noir with a view straight down the valley, and has one of its best restaurants. Just up the road, Coldstream Hills is a smaller, quieter cellar door that’s easy to add on.
4. Yering Station
Yering Station sits on the site of Victoria’s first vineyard, planted in 1838. Its modern cellar door is one of the valley’s largest, with a produce store and restaurant, and the historic Chateau Yering hotel is next door.
5. TarraWarra Estate and Museum of Art
TarraWarra Estate combines a winery, a restaurant and the TarraWarra Museum of Art, a striking gallery of modern Australian art set among the vines. For us, the views here and at Domaine Chandon were some of the best in the Yarra Valley.
6. Dinner in Healesville
We weren’t after a fancy four-course dinner, so we ended our first day at Innocent Bystander in Healesville, with sharing plates and its famous pink moscato on the outdoor terrace as the sun went down. That venue has since closed, but Healesville is still the easiest place in the valley for a relaxed dinner. The Healesville Hotel, a restored heritage pub on the main street, serves local produce and Yarra Valley wines.
7. Beer and Cider at Meletos
If wine isn’t your thing, Meletos brews its own beer and cider in a converted farm building near Coldstream. We built our own tasting paddle of four and sat inside by the bar. It’s a good break in the middle of a wine day, too.
8. The Yarra Valley Chocolaterie
The Yarra Valley Chocolaterie and Ice Creamery is exactly as much fun as it sounds: free chocolate tastings, rooms full of handmade chocolate, chocolate tea and even chocolate lip gloss. It’s the place to take anyone who’s had enough wine, and it’s hard not to leave smiling.
9. Healesville Sanctuary
Healesville Sanctuary, run by Zoos Victoria, is the best place near Melbourne to see Australian animals up close: koalas, wombats, platypus, echidnas, kangaroos and a free-flight bird-of-prey show. Plan half a day, and time your visit around the free keeper talks.
The platypus house and the nocturnal area are the highlights for many visitors, since both animals are hard to spot in the wild. The sanctuary is also a working wildlife hospital, and you can watch vets treat injured animals through a viewing window. Tickets are cheaper online, and weekday mornings are the quietest time to go.
10. Ride the Puffing Billy Steam Train
Puffing Billy, a restored steam railway from the early 1900s, winds through the forests of the Dandenong Ranges on the southern edge of the valley. Children and adults sit on the open window ledges with their legs over the side. This half-day Puffing Billy trip includes transport from Melbourne.
The train runs from Belgrave, about an hour from the city, to Lakeside or Gembrook, and the full line is roughly two hours each way. Most people ride one leg and return by coach. Book ahead for weekends and school holidays, when trains sell out.
11. Take a Hot-Air Balloon Flight
For the ultimate Yarra Valley morning, balloons lift off at sunrise and drift over the vineyards and forest, with the city skyline on the horizon on a clear day. Flights aren’t cheap, but many include a champagne breakfast afterwards, like this balloon flight with buffet breakfast.
12. Four Pillars Gin
Four Pillars Gin in Healesville is one of Australia’s best-known craft distilleries, with tastings, gin cocktails and a shop full of gins you won’t find elsewhere. It’s in the middle of Healesville, so it pairs easily with dinner in town.
The tasting flight is the easiest way to understand the range, from the classic Rare Dry to the Bloody Shiraz gin, made by steeping shiraz grapes in gin after harvest. Weekends get busy, so book a table if you want to sit down.
13. Sunset From Mount Dandenong
The best sunset of our weekend was from SkyHigh Mount Dandenong, with the sun sinking over the whole of Melbourne in a perfect medley of colours. It’s on the southern edge of the valley, so it’s easy to add on the way back to the city.
14. Sugarloaf Reservoir and the Black Spur Drive
Mother nature was kind to the Yarra Valley. Sheep, horses and cattle graze beside the road, and the lookouts around Christmas Hills and Healesville look out over rolling hills and forest. Sugarloaf Reservoir has picnic areas with views across the valley. For a longer drive, the Black Spur, north of Healesville, runs through towering mountain ash forest in Yarra Ranges National Park.
15. The Warburton Redwoods and Rail Trail
At the valley’s eastern end, the Warburton redwood forest is a quiet grove of towering Californian redwoods planted in the 1930s. The 38 km (24 miles) Lilydale to Warburton Rail Trail passes nearby and is one of Victoria’s most popular easy cycling routes, with bike hire in Lilydale.
The trail is flat and mostly gravel, passing cellar doors, small towns and farmland, so it’s easy to break into shorter sections. Warburton itself is a pretty riverside town with cafes and a swing bridge over the Yarra River, and it makes a good lunch stop at the end of the ride.
A Weekend in the Yarra Valley
This is roughly how we spent our two days, and it’s the plan we’d suggest for a first weekend.
Day 1: start at the visitor centre in Healesville for maps, then taste at Domaine Chandon, Oakridge and De Bortoli, with lunch at one of them. Finish with the Chocolaterie in the afternoon, and dinner in Healesville.
Day 2: a slow breakfast, a walk or picnic at Sugarloaf Reservoir, the Meletos tasting paddle, Healesville Sanctuary or Four Pillars, then sunset from Mount Dandenong on the way back to Melbourne.
The map follows the loop from Melbourne through Yarra Glen and Healesville to Mount Dandenong.
If you only have one day, our guide to day trips from Melbourne has other options to weigh it against, from the Mornington Peninsula to Phillip Island.
Best Time to Visit the Yarra Valley
Autumn, from March to May, is the prettiest season, with harvest in the vineyards and the valley turning red and gold. Winter brings crisp days, fireplaces and red wine, and it’s when Melburnians book their weekends away. Spring is green and fresh, while summer is warm to hot and the busiest time for weddings and events. Weekends are always busier than weekdays, so book tastings and restaurants ahead.
Getting to the Yarra Valley
The Yarra Valley is about an hour’s drive from Melbourne via the Eastern Freeway and the Maroondah Highway. Trains run to Lilydale, with buses on to Healesville, but getting between cellar doors without a car isn’t practical. Most visitors drive with a designated driver, hire a driver, or join a winery tour.
A tour means everyone in your group can taste, and you’ll see a winery, a gin distillery and the chocolate factory in one day without worrying about the drive back to Melbourne.
A full-day tour from Melbourne with wine, gin, whisky and chocolate tastings, rated 4.9 out of 5 from more than 1,400 reviews.
If you’d rather go at your own pace and stay the night, a car gives you the most freedom.
The drive is half the pleasure: once you leave the suburbs, vineyards line the road most of the way from Yarra Glen to Healesville.
With your own car you can linger at the cellar doors you love, drive the Black Spur and catch the sunset at Mount Dandenong on your own schedule.
Compare rental cars from Melbourne Airport and the city, with free cancellation on most bookings.
Where to Eat in the Yarra Valley
Many wineries have excellent restaurants, and on Saturday nights several pair their best wines with multi-course menus. These are our picks, a mix of places we ate at and others with strong reputations.
| Restaurant | Style | Known for |
|---|---|---|
| Meletos | Brewery and restaurant | Build-your-own beer and cider paddles (we visited) |
| De Bortoli | Winery restaurant | Cheese and wine, vineyard views (we tasted here) |
| Oakridge | Fine dining | Seasonal menus with a valley view |
| Zonzo Estate | Italian | Wood-fired pizza among the vines |
| Oscar’s on the Yarra | Riverside dining | Relaxed meals by the Yarra River |
| Yarra Valley Dairy | Cheese and produce | Cheese tastings and a farm shop |
Our favourite lunch of the weekend was at Mocha & Lime, a homestyle cafe in Healesville that has since closed. The Yarra Valley Dairy’s farm shop is a good stop for picnic supplies, and it sells far more than milk and cheese.
For a special-occasion lunch, Tokar Estate in Coldstream has a dining room looking straight over its vines. We very nearly booked the four-course menu for the view alone.
Where to Stay in the Yarra Valley
We stayed in an Airbnb cabin in the forest at Christmas Hills. It was a bit of a drive from the wineries, but what it lacked in location it made up for in comfort, with a deck over the forest and a kitchen stocked with fresh bread, eggs and cheese for breakfast.
If you’d rather stay somewhere with a restaurant, a spa or a vineyard on the doorstep, these are the best-rated places in the valley.
| Hotel | Area | Price | Best For |
|---|---|---|---|
| Chateau Yering | Yering | $$$ | A historic homestead hotel next to Yering Station |
| Balgownie Estate | Yarra Glen | $$$$ | A vineyard resort with a spa and restaurant |
| Linden Gardens Rainforest Retreat | Mount Dandenong | $$$$ | An eco retreat in the rainforest gardens |
| Healesville Hotel | Healesville | $$ | A boutique pub stay in town, walking distance to dinner |
| RACV Healesville Country Club | Healesville | $$$ | Families, golf and a pool |
Chateau Yering
Chateau Yering is a restored 1854 homestead with antique-filled suites, gardens and a fine-dining restaurant, right beside Yering Station.
Balgownie Estate
Balgownie Estate is a resort set among its own vines at Yarra Glen, with a day spa, a restaurant and a central location for touring.
Linden Gardens Rainforest Retreat
Linden Gardens Rainforest Retreat sits in three acres of rainforest gardens on Mount Dandenong, opposite the William Ricketts Sanctuary, with guest suites designed for a quiet, green escape and some of the best guest ratings in the region.
If you’re basing yourself in Melbourne instead, our guide to where to stay in Melbourne covers the city’s neighbourhoods.
How Long to Spend in the Yarra Valley
Most visitors come for a day, taste at three or four cellar doors and head back after sunset. For us, two days in the valley was plenty of time to see the best wineries, add the Chocolaterie and a sunset, eat well and relax. With a third day, add Healesville Sanctuary, Puffing Billy and the Warburton redwoods.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is the Yarra Valley worth visiting?
Yes, especially for wine and food lovers. More than 80 wineries, good restaurants and forest scenery sit about an hour from Melbourne, and it works as a day trip or a relaxed weekend.
How far is the Yarra Valley from Melbourne?
About 60 km (37 miles) north-east of the CBD, roughly an hour’s drive via the Eastern Freeway and Maroondah Highway.
Can you visit the Yarra Valley without a car?
Yes. Day tours from Melbourne include transport between wineries, and trains run to Lilydale with buses on to Healesville, though a car or tour is far easier than public transport between cellar doors.
How many days do you need in the Yarra Valley?
One day covers three or four cellar doors and lunch; two days lets you add Healesville Sanctuary, the Chocolaterie and a slower dinner.
What is the Yarra Valley known for?
Cool-climate wine, especially pinot noir, chardonnay and sparkling, plus farm-gate produce, Healesville Sanctuary and the forests of the Yarra Ranges.
When is the best time to visit the Yarra Valley?
Autumn (March to May) for harvest and colour, or winter for fireplaces and red wine. Summer weekends are the busiest.
Do you need to book Yarra Valley wine tastings?
At most larger cellar doors, yes, especially on weekends. Many now charge a small tasting fee, which some refund when you buy a bottle.
What can a family with young kids who don’t drink wine do in the Yarra Valley for a weekend?
Healesville Sanctuary, Puffing Billy, the Yarra Valley Chocolaterie, a picnic at Sugarloaf Reservoir and the Warburton redwoods fill two days without a single cellar door.
Final Thoughts
The things to do in Yarra Valley are simple pleasures done very well: a long tasting, a good meal, a drive through the forest and a sunset over the city. Our weekend there was one of our favourite escapes from Melbourne, and we’d happily spend longer. If you can, stay a night, book your tastings, and leave room for the Chocolaterie. Which cellar door would you start with?
If the Yarra Valley leaves you wanting more wine country, we’ve also written about Canada’s wine regions. For the rest of Victoria, see our guides to the Great Ocean Road, the Great Ocean Walk, visiting Melbourne and the Sydney to Melbourne drive, or plan the bigger trip with our Australia itinerary and Tasmania. The Visit Yarra Valley site lists current events and cellar-door hours.
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