Dairy Flat Lodge & Farm in Musk, Victoria, is the kind of place where you arrive and immediately begin dreaming of ways to make every day feel more like the way you feel in that moment. We hadn’t even been there twenty-four hours before Brad started sending me listings for nearby farms for sale.
For us, this weekend away together was so needed that we could have been staying in a three-star motel on the side of a highway, and it would have felt more peaceful than the chaos of home with our two-and-a-half-year-old, who is transitioning out of her day nap era.
I needed this trip so badly I was close to tears in the days leading up to it – the excited anticipation, mixed with the fear that something would go wrong and derail our plans.
The weekend before, Elsie had come down with gastro – vomiting through our bed at 4am. As she recovered over the next few days, I held my breath. Would we come down with it ourselves? Worse – would my mum, flying in from Tasmania to babysit, be struck down before we even made it out the door? I didn’t let myself believe it was actually happening until the day came, we put our bags in the car, and took off. Gastro-free.
A child-free weekend away. Our first in almost a year, since we moved to Victoria.
We arrived at Dairy Flat Lodge to a grand wrought-iron gate and made our way up a long driveway lined with silver birch trees. At the top, we were greeted by Imogen, our concierge for the weekend, who had already been in touch ahead of our arrival with helpful hints on directions and plans for the weekend ahead.
Set on 38 acres of farmland in Musk, just seven kilometres from Daylesford, the property is the vision of the Wolf-Tasker family – the team behind the acclaimed Lake House Daylesford. The lodge itself is a grand Hamptons-style farmhouse featuring six king suites, each with a private ensuite. It can be booked exclusively for groups of up to twelve, or, as was the case during our stay, as individual rooms alongside other guests.
After settling into our room (Northern Suite 1), our first activity was a farm tour with Imogen and a handful of the other guests on-site for the weekend – and Leo & Luna, who we met along the way.
We learned about the history of the property – the known and, perhaps more intriguingly, the unknown. Very little is known about the original owner, who clearly worked tirelessly on landscaping that rivals regal English gardens. Walking through the box hedges at sunset reminded me of a scene from Saltburn – if you know, you know.
One section of the garden leads into Mary’s Way, and as Imogen tells it, no one has ever been able to find out who Mary was, or who built this garden for her. I found it interesting that no one seemed to have considered the possibility that perhaps, Mary created her own way.
After the farm tour, we retreated to the homestead’s communal living area – a beautifully styled open kitchen and lounge that wraps around a central fireplace. The space is eclectically curated and full of warmth and colour, including paintings by the late Allan Wolf-Tasker.
We settled in with the charcuterie board we’d requested ahead of arrival and helped ourselves to the complimentary beer and cider from the drinks fridge. I chose an almost too easy to drink session cider from Daylesford Cider, located just down the road from the farm.
As we opened our second (or was it third?) drinks, we wandered back down into the gardens to take in the country air at dusk. Imogen offered to turn on the fairy lights for us, and we sat in the crisp silence watching a pink sunset fade above the tree line, surrounded by a chorus of birds.
Determined to make the most of every moment, once the sun had set and the sky darkened enough for the stars to appear, we pulled on our bathers and made our way out to the cedar hot tub overlooking the vineyard. Sitting there, so completely relaxed, I found myself saying out loud what I’d been feeling all afternoon – that it’s moments like these where you remember who you were as a person, and as a couple, before you became parents.
I woke the next morning to the smell of freshly baked bread drifting into our room from the on-site bakehouse, connected to the house via a secret underground tunnel. Yes, really.
Not usually the first one up (ever!), I slipped out to the kitchen for freshly made coffee and found Imogen and the team had produced a colourful breakfast smorgasbord fit for royalty – which, to be honest, is a little how you feel during a stay here.
After breakfast, we took a coffee outside and found a sunny spot on top of the Bakehouse, where we could sit and take in the view of the homestead. The birds were still singing, though calmer now than they were at sunset. It was a perfect autumn day – still and sunny, not a cloud in the sky.
Spring at home in Torquay had been chaotically windy, making me feel constantly untethered, so to find this stillness in the countryside was, honestly, medicinal. I made my way over to the mineral pool and dangled my feet in while reading my book. it wasn’t long before the morning warmed enough to entice us both back to the room to change into bathers for a swim.
Before we knew it, the morning had got away from us and it was 1pm. We borrowed the lodge’s electric bikes and rode down the road to Daylesford Cider for lunch.
It had been years since I’d ridden a bike, and it made me think of those social media posts doing the rounds lately about the therapeutic benefits of nostalgia – people listening to music from their teenage years as a type of therapy. Riding a bike along a country road was doing exactly that for me. I was taken straight back to carefree days riding to friends’ houses.
It was one of those days that felt restful, yet beautifully full.
And speaking of full – our next stop was dinner at Lake House Restaurant in Daylesford. We deliberately arrived half an hour early, wanting time to take in the view from the deck before the evening began. We sat and raised a glass to a day well spent as the sun dropped over Lake Daylesford. The setting was hypnotically peaceful, and the lake was quite literally glowing.
Back inside, we were presented with a menu built around fresh produce – much of it grown on the very farm we had walked through the evening before. A note from Culinary Director Alla Wolf-Tasker AM spoke to the season of Autumn, and the current picking list from Dairy Flat Farm of tomatoes, eggplant, zucchini, berries, beetroot, rhubarb, carrots, alliums, brassicas, a multitude of herbs and edible flowers.
“Dishes titled ‘The art of the vegetable’ are a tribute to how much inspiration this beautiful produce offers us”, she shared.
The next morning, still full from dinner, I wandered the farm barefoot, attempting to make room for one final breakfast. Every chance I’d had over the weekend, I took my shoes off and placed my bare feet on the earth – a ritual I try to practise as much as possible at home, but at Dairy Flat Farm, it felt almost instinctive.
I was turning this thought over in my mind when I ran into Larissa Wolf-Tasker coming out of the Bakehouse. She spoke of the region’s unique geological makeup – an ancient volcanic landscape threaded with mineral springs and fault lines – which has long contributed to Daylesford’s reputation as a place of healing and renewal.
It made complete sense. My nervous system had shifted the moment we arrived, and on that final morning at the lodge, I felt lighter.
I truly can’t recommend the magic of this property highly enough. Whether you’re gathering your people for an exclusive weekend or stealing away as two, book your stay at Dairy Flat Lodge & Farm here.
The writer of this article was hosted by Dairy Flat Lodge & Farm for a complimentary stay, and for dinner at Lake House Restaurant. All opinions expressed are based on the author’s personal experience.
All images taken by Alexandra Cuthbert.
