Macedon

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Wearing: Zara sushi print t-shirt | Missguided corduroy skirt | Zara grey coat | Ace of Something Oslo fedora in vanilla chai | Elk Accessories Orm bag | Miista Brianna black boots (more from the brand here) | Nike Air Max Thea black trainers (more styles here)

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As I've probably mentioned before, I've been hoping to dedicate more weekends this year to exploring our own backyard so a few weeks back, Tom & I did just that. We headed off to Macedon Ranges, a place I'd heard about before but had not visited yet until I realised just how close it was to the suburbs.I would liken the area and attractions of Mt Macedon to that of Mt Dandenong. It's about the same distance out but in the opposite direction and like Dandenong has lots of nice lookout points, picnic grounds and gardens. Being only about an hour's drive, Macedon makes for a great day trip spot with ample amounts of things to do.If you want to head there for a day trip, here's everything you can easily fit in with lots of extra time to spare:Honour Avenue: This street gets its name from the fact that it honours those from Macedon town for enlisting in the Great War and turns a magical autumn hue come the changing of seasons. However, it's never as empty as it looks in pictures as tour buses actually make a stopover here. Most of the time it's often packed with people!Forest Glade Gardens: There are many gardens to be explored in Macedon and one of the more popular ones we came across was Forest Glade Gardens. The place is packed with people (it kind of felt like the entire town was packed with visitors, actually) but is a really nice place to explore nevertheless with sections dedicated to ferns, hydrangeas, bonsai, peonies and more. You can also have a picnic here as there's lots of lawns within the gardens to do just that. No toilets though!Picnic at Cameron Picnic Grounds: If you drive up Mt Macedon, you'll find even more picnic grounds. Cameron Picnic Grounds is one of the larger picnic grounds there with BBQ & toilet facilities and is the perfect spot to relax with a home-packed picnic.Macedon lookout points - the Memorial Cross Reserve + Major Mitchell lookout: We packed our runners for this but both of these lookout points ended up being a really short, casual stroll up a paved path - we were expecting a full on hike! Mount Macedon's lookout points don't need much energy to get to because the road actually takes you to the top of the mountain, making it more of a tourist stopover rather than somewhere to hike up. It's still a nice, serene view though and worth having a peek at.Camel's hump: This might be a tiny bit more 'strenuous' than the other lookout points but it really isn't much at all either. It's about a 10 minute walk on an uphill path to reach the summit here, running shoes weren't particularly necessary again. The view here is one of my favourites though - you can see Hanging Rock from afar as well as the surrounding towns and farms below.Photography: Tom & I using Canon Australia EOS 7D Mark II