East

Satisfy spirit and stomach with great foodie spots, shops and an abundance of heritage homes and green leafy spaces to explore – think hiking and biking trails alongside the Yarra and more.

Fawkner Park

Close to the city centre, Fawkner Park is a good option for lovely sunny spring days. Featuring two Art Deco brick pavilions and meandering paths lined with Moreton Bay figs, elms, poplars and oak, the park is a popular spot for a game or two of tennis.

Yarra Bend Park Kieran Davis

Yarra Bend Park

Located in Kew, this is one of Melbourne’s largest natural bushland parks, and offers loads of opportunities to enjoy leafy grounds and abundant wildlife, whether you’re on foot or bicycle. Hire a canoe, kayak or rowboat from historic Studley Park Boathouse then explore the Yarra River. Otherwise simply enjoy a waterfront lunch in the restaurant or cafe.

Fawkner Park Laura Spencer

Bogong Reserve

For a bushwalk in the heart of suburbia, take a quick stroll around Bogong Reserve, a spacious recreational space providing a bushland setting, playground and walking trail. The reserve connects to Bogong Avenue, allowing access to Glen Waverley’s lively dining precinct, Kingsway. Featuring historic buildings, huge gum trees, wattles, seasonal flowers and ponds, Wattle Park is a diverse space, offering room to run, walk and cycle. If that’s not your thing, the park also has tennis courts and a nine-hole public golf course. Wattle Park

Wattle Park

Blackburn Lake

Blackburn Lake Sanctuary

One of the few significant remaining natural bushland reserves in Melbourne, this is a spot to enjoy a stroll along some beautiful walking trails. If you’re lucky you might see an echidna and some of the other Australian wildlife that call this bushland home.

Nick Addison

The Fashion Capital

For 60 years, Chadstone – The Fashion Capital has been at the forefront of retail, fashion and entertainment. As the largest integrated lifestyle destination in the southern hemisphere, the retail mecca delivers memorable stories, iconic moments and world class-experiences, and continues to evolve into an entertainment and lifestyle destination.

The Fashion Capital is home to 550 stores and the largest luxury offering in one location in Melbourne. Committed to offering unsurpassed experiences, opulent entertainment and the very best in food, Chadstone truly has something for everyone – including accommodation. Connected via a canopied walkway, Hotel Chadstone Melbourne, MGallery by Sofitel offers a luxury retreat for when customers are finished shopping and are ready to relax.

The safety and wellbeing of all customers, retailers, team members and the community is Chadstone’s top priority. Extra precautions have been implemented throughout the centre to ensure it remains clean and hygienic, including more thorough cleaning to high-traffic and high-touch areas. Chadstone encourages all visitors to practise physical distancing and good hygiene. +chadstone.com.au

Discover art in Melbourne’s east

Heide Museum of Modern Art John Gollings

Heide Museum of Modern Art, one of Austalia’s most important cultural institutions, is a great place to start your artistic encounter in the east. Within its galleries, visitors are spoiled with a range of exhibitions, while the gardens are dotted with sculptures and art, and are home to a working kitchen garden.

Leaving suburbia behind you, your next stop is Warrandyte’s Stonehouse Galleryon Yarra Street. One of the longest established art and craft co-operatives in Australia, Stonehouse was founded in 1972 by eight like-minded potters to promote their work. Today it continues with 18 diverse members and invited artists showcasing and selling beautiful ceramics, textiles, woodwork, glass, jewellery and furniture.

Further along Yarra Street is Federation Playspaceand the ruins of some early buildings that were damaged in previous floods.

Finish off by heading west to Doncaster where you’ll discover the eclectic program of contemporary art exhibitions at Manningham Art Gallery. +heide.com.au +stonehousegallery.com +manningham.vic.gov.au

Textile, Stonehouse Gallery Michelle Mischkulnig