Board the heritage Grainlander and step back in time for a rail journey discovering silo art, Lake Tyrrell and Victoria’s Mallee region.
One of the best ways to experience Australia is on board a train, and the heritage Grainlader showcases both the beauty of the sprawling Victorian plains and the towering artworks along the Mallee Silo Art Trail.
Below, I take you on a journey to discover what it’s like to spend two nights aboard this iconic locomotive.
What is the Grainlander?
The vintage sleeper train takes patrons on a journey through regional Victoria. (Image: Joanne Karcz)
The Grainlander is a heritage overnight sleeper train in Victoria operated by Slow Rail Journeys, the public tour arm of Seven-O-Seven Operations. It travels through the state’s regional areas, highlights include the Mallee Silo Art Trail (guided off-train tours of the large-scale murals are part of the journey).
Vice President of the volunteer-run not-for-profit organisation, Matt Lucas, says their mission is to “share and restore rail heritage and to promote and increase touring in regional Victoria."
The journey
The Grainlander departs Melbourne. (Image: Joanne Karcz)
Travelling from Melbourne to Sea Lake, we rumble through Melbourne’s western suburbs and Bacchus Marsh to Ballarat. We pass through towns I’ve never heard of: Wycheproof, Nullawil and Buckrabanyule.
The quick stops are not conducive to alighting from the train, but there’s time for that on the return journey when I alight at Wycheproof for a brisk walk down the main road to see the tracks tracing parallel lines through the town centre. In Maryborough, I stretch my legs and explore the imposing red brick station.
From Ballarat, we trace a path via Geelong to Melbourne along a line that carried miners and freight to the goldfields in the 1800s, thus providing train enthusiasts with a unique experience.
The guest who is on a mission to ride every railway track in Victoria, is thrilled.
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Life on board
The writer's view from the bed of her Single Premium Cabin. (Image: Joanne Karcz)
Details inside the wooden heritage car. (Image: Joanne Karcz)
The Dining Car is buzzing. (Image: Joanne Karcz)
Single Premium Cabins have the essentials for a comfortable journey. (Image: Joanne Karcz)
There’s plenty of giggling as guests in the 1962 Southern Aurora Car inspect our cosy single cabins. I open latches, turn a little handle to wind up the venetian blinds and delight at the art deco bed lamp. The drop-down toilet is sealed. That’s fine by me. I’d rather use the facility at the end of the carriage.
Melbourne’s city lights flash past my window. Although it’s after 10pm, I’m not ready to curl into my tightly made-up bed – which folds up during the day.
Wobbling along the narrow passage to the Club Lounge, I steady myself with my hands. The woman ahead of me says she “feels like a pinball ricocheting off the walls."
A group of women have settled in, their wine glasses resting on the marbled green coffee table, its boomerang shape echoing that of the curved brown faux leather couches. They invite me to join them. Already my nerves as a solo traveller have evaporated.
Waking early, I sit in bed sipping tea and watch the passing parade of silhouetted trees as the sky lightens.
Gradually the scene comes to life. Early sunlight brightens a field of yellow canola. Sheep gather under a tree, squawking black crows take off and kangaroos bound across green fields. In Wycheproof, a family standing outside their white picket fence wave, their arms forming big arcs.
Some guests remain in their cabins, reading or perhaps reminiscing about travelling in these very carriages as children. The 1923 heritage wooden sleeper is like stepping back in time with leadlight features, carved detail in the wooden panelling and even a “SMOKING" sign. As in the premium twin cabins, the seats fold into bunk beds at night.
Being a social animal, I prefer to chat with other guests in the club or seating lounge.
We eat well. Hearty breakfasts and Sunday lunch are served in the dining car. In keeping with the organisation’s mission to support local businesses, a bakery in Wycheproof prepares Saturday’s picnic lunch and dinner is in the Royal Hotel Sea Lake, run by a co-operative of local farmers and investors.
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Exploring the Mallee and the Silo Art Trail
Patchewollock Silo Art by Fintan Magee. (Image: Joanne Karcz)
Stepping off the train at Nulliwal, we view our first silo art. Jimmy, a black and tan kelpie, looks down from the silo wall. As a special treat, we meet Jimmy himself. Retired from farmwork, he revels in our attention.
The train pulls into Sea Lake where a colourful mural depicts a young girl on a swing watching the sky change colour as the sun sets. It’s Saturday. Few shops are open, but I still manage to buy a box of Lake Tyrrell Salt. A fellow traveller discovers a Mother Goose teapot for her collector daughter.
Patchewollock is one of many charming towns to explore on the journey. (Image: Joanne Karcz)
We travel by bus to see silo art in the small communities of Lascelles, Roseberry and Patchewollock. The towering works depict local people and represent the resilience, strength and tenacity of those living in the Mallee.
As the sun sets, the sky at Lake Tyrrell, Victoria’s largest salt lake, itself becomes an artwork. Pastel blues and pinks change to orange and grey as a golden beam spreads across the lake.
Stop for sunset at Lake Tyrrell. (Image: Joanne Karcz)
Details
From $1,045 per person, fares include all meals and tours. The two-night Slow Rail Journey operates most months except in the hot summer months.
Guests include rail enthusiasts, couples, solo travellers and mother/daughter duos. The Grainlander is not accessible for wheelchair users. People with mobility issues may have difficulty stepping on board and walking through the train.
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Abandoned mills and forgotten paper plants are finding second lives – and helping redefine a city long underestimated.
Just 15 years ago, Federal Mills was a very different place. Once among the most significant industrial sites in Victoria, the historic woollen mill was one of a dozen that operated in Geelong at the industry’s peak in the mid-20th century, helping the city earn its title as ‘wool centre of the world’. But by the 1960s global competition and the rise of synthetic fabrics led to the slow decline of the industry, and Federal Mills finally shuttered its doors in 2001. Within a few years, the abandoned North Geelong grounds had become makeshift pastoral land, with cows and goats grazing among the overgrown grass between the empty red-brick warehouses. It was a forgotten pocket of the city, all but two klicks from the bustle of the CBD.
Geelong has shed its industrial identity to become an innovative urban hub with reimagined heritage spaces. (Image: Ash Hughes)
Federal Mills: from forgotten factory to creative precinct
Today, the century-old complex stands reborn. The distinctive sawtooth-roof buildings have been sensitively restored. An old silo is splashed with a bright floral mural, landscapers have transformed the grounds, and the precinct is once again alive with activity. More than 1000 people work across 50-plus businesses here. It’s so busy, in fact, that on a sunny Thursday morning in the thick of winter, it’s hard to find a car park. The high ceilings, open-plan design, and large multi-paned windows – revolutionary features for factories of their time – have again become a drawcard.
Paddock Bakery and Patisserie is housed within the historic wool factory. (Image: Gallant Lee)
At Paddock, one of the precinct’s newer tenants, weaving looms and dye vats have been replaced by a wood-fired brick oven and heavy-duty mixers. Open since April 2024, the bakery looks right at home here; the building’s industrial shell is softened by ivy climbing its steel frames, and sunlight streams through the tall windows. Outside, among the white cedar trees, families at picnic benches linger over dippy eggs and bagels, while white-collar workers pass in and out, single-origin coffee and crème brûlée doughnuts in hand.
Geelong: Australia’s only UNESCO City of Design
Paddock Bakery can be found at Federal Mills. (Image: Gallant Lee)
“A lot of people are now seeing the merit of investing in Geelong,” says Paul Traynor, the head of Hamilton Hospitality Group, which redeveloped Federal Mills. A city once shunned as Sleepy Hollow, and spurned for its industrial, working-class roots and ‘rust belt’ image, Geelong has long since reclaimed its ‘Pivot City’ title, having reinvented itself as an affordable, lifestyle-driven satellite city, and a post-COVID migration hotspot.
And the numbers stand testament to the change. In March 2025, and for the first time in its history, Greater Geelong became Australia’s most popular regional town for internal migration, overtaking Queensland’s Sunshine Coast. Current forecasts suggest Geelong will continue to outpace many other Australian cities and towns, with jobs growing at double the rate of the population.
Tourism is booming, too. The 2023-24 financial year was Geelong and The Bellarine region’s busiest on record, with 6.4 million visitors making it one of the fastest-growing destinations in the country. It’s not hard to see why: beyond the city’s prime positioning at the doorstep of the Great Ocean Road, Geelong’s tenacity and cultural ambition stands out.
As Australia’s only UNESCO City of Design, Geelong is swiftly shaking off its industrial past to become a model for urban renewal, innovation, sustainability and creative communities. The signs are everywhere, from the revitalisation of the city’s waterfront, and the landmark design of the Geelong Library and Heritage Centre and Geelong Arts Centre, to the growing network of local designers, architects and artists, and the burgeoning roster of festivals and events. That’s not even mentioning the adaptive reuse of storied old industrial buildings – from Federal Mills, to Little Creatures’ brewery ‘village’ housed within a 1920s textile mill – or the city’s flourishing food and wine scene.
The rise of a food and wine destination
Restaurant 1915 is housed within a restored former boiler house. (Image: Harry Pope/Two Palms)
Traynor credits now-closed local restaurant Igni, which opened in 2016, as the turning point for Geelong’s hospo industry. “[Aaron Turner, Igni’s chef-patron] was probably the first guy, with all due respect, to raise the bar food-wise for Geelong,” he says. “People now treat it really seriously, and there’s clearly a market for it.” While Igni is gone, Turner now helms a string of other notable Geelong venues, including The Hot Chicken Project and Tacos y Liquor, all within the buzzy, street art-speckled laneways of the CBD’s Little Malop Street Precinct. Many others have also popped up in Igni’s wake, including Federal Mills’ own restaurant, 1915. Housed within the cavernous boiler house, 1915’s interior is dramatic: soaring, vaulted ceilings with timber beams, exposed brick, a huge arched window. The share plates echo the space’s bold character, playing with contrast and texture, with dishes such as a compressed watermelon tataki, the sweet, juicy squares tempered by salty strands of fried leeks, and charred, smoky snow peas dusted with saganaki on a nutty bed of romesco.
The Woolstore is a new restaurant and bar housed within a century-old warehouse. (Image: Amy Carlon)
The Woolstore, one of The Hamilton Group’s most recent hospo projects, opened in February. It occupies a century-old riverside warehouse and exudes a more sultry, fine dining ambience. Much like Federal Mills, the blueprint was to preserve the original brickwork, tallowwood flooring and nods to the building’s former life. That same careful consideration extends to the well-versed, affable waitstaff as well as the kitchen. Head chef Eli Grubb is turning out an eclectic mix of ambitious and indulgent mod Oz dishes that deliver: strikingly tender skewers of chicken tsukune, infused with hints of smoke from the parrilla grill, and glazed with a moreish, sweet gochujang ‘jam’; nduja arancini fragrant with hints of aniseed and the earthy lick of sunny saffron aioli; and golden squares of potato pavé, adorned with tiny turrets of crème fraîche, crisp-fried saltbush leaves, and Avruga caviar, to name but a few stand-out dishes.
Woolstore’s menu is designed for sharing.
Breathing new life into historic spaces
On the city’s fringe, hidden down a winding side road with little fanfare, lies a long-dormant site that’s being gently revived. Built from locally quarried bluestone and brick, and dating back to the 1870s, the complex of original tin-roofed mill buildings is lush with greenery and backs onto the Barwon River and Buckley Falls; the audible rush of water provides a soothing soundtrack. Fyansford Paper Mill is one of few complexes of its time to survive intact. It feels steeped in history and spellbindingly rustic.
“We were looking for an old industrial place that had some charm and romance to it,” explains Sam Vogel, the owner, director and winemaker at Provenance Wines which moved here in 2018. When he first viewed the building with his former co-owner, it was in such a state of disrepair that the tradie tenant occupying the space had built a shed within it to escape the leaking roof and freezing winter temperatures. “To say it was run down would be an understatement,” he notes. “There was ivy growing through the place; the windows were all smashed. It was a classic Grand Designs project.”
Provenance Wines moved to Fyansford Paper Mill in 2018. (Image: Cameron Murray Photography)
The team has since invested more than a million dollars into their new home. Where paper processing machinery once sat, wine barrels are now stacked. Vaulted cathedral ceilings are strung with festoon lights, and hidden in plain sight lies a shadowy mural by local street artist de rigueur Rone – one of only three permanent works by the artist.
While the award-winning, cool-climate pinot noir, riesling and chardonnay naturally remain a key draw at Provenance, the winery’s restaurant is a destination in itself. Impressed already by whipsmart service, I devour one of the most cleverly curated and faultlessly executed degustations I’ve had in some time. It’s all prepared in a kitchen that is proudly zero-waste, and committed to providing seasonal, ethical and locally sourced meat and produce under head chef Nate McIver. Think free-range venison served rare with a syrupy red wine jus and a half-moon of neon-orange kosho, shokupan with a deeply savoury duck fat jus (a modern Japanese take on bread and drippings), and a golden potato cake adorned with a colourful confetti of dehydrated nasturtiums and tomato powder, and planted atop a sea urchin emulsion.
Bell’s handcrafted functional pieces on display.
The complex is home to a coterie of independent businesses, including a gallery, a jeweller, and its latest tenant, ceramicist Elizabeth Bell, drawn here by the building’s “soul”. “There’s so much potential for these buildings to have new life breathed into them,” says Bell, whose studio is housed within the old pump room. “Even people in Geelong don’t know we’re here,” she says. “It’s definitely a destination, but I like that. It has a really calming atmosphere.”
A Melbourne transplant, Bell now feels at home in Geelong, which offers something Melbourne didn’t. “If this business was in Melbourne I don’t think it would’ve been as successful,” she notes. “It’s very collaborative in Geelong, and I don’t think you get that as much in Melbourne; you’re a bit more in it for yourself. Here it’s about community over competition.”
Ceramicist Elizabeth Bell has a store in Fyansford Paper Mill.
