The Gippsland line

Gippsland gets greener with every stop. Drouin and Warragul sit in dairy hill country, Yarragon and Trafalgar are proper browsing towns, and Traralgon anchors the valley.

Push on to Sale and Bairnsdale and you are at the edge of the Gippsland Lakes — Australia's largest inland waterway — with coach links to Lakes Entrance and Metung.

• Yarragon's providores and Trafalgar's antique strip

  Two tiny stops with outsized shopping: cheese, sourdough and cider in Yarragon, then a long antique strip a few minutes down the line.

• Baw Baw and Tarra-Bulga forest country from Warragul

  Cool temperate rainforest of mountain ash and tree ferns, with a suspension bridge walk that feels a world away from the city.

• Sale's canal, wetlands boardwalk and art centre

  A boardwalk out over the wetlands at sunset, a working canal and a first-rate regional art centre, all inside the town grid.

• Bairnsdale, Mitchell River and the Gippsland Lakes

  The end of the line opens onto Australia's largest inland waterway system — jetties, silt jetties and sunsets over still water.