The Little Local Tourist Guide Spring 2023

Welcome to The Local Visitors Guide

Welcome to the Spring 2023 edition of The Local visitors guide to the Central Highlands.

We really hope you enjoy this edition. It’s packed with features on locals, places to head, markets to wander around and live music to enjoy. You can read the full stories, and this Visitors Guide, at www.tlnews.com.au

Front cover image: Kyle Barnes

This Visitors Guide is produced by The Local Publishing Group Pty Ltd.

Editor: Donna Kelly | General Manager: Kyle Barnes

Advertising: Kyle Barnes on 0416 104 283 or kyle@tlnews.com.au

Writers: Eve Lamb, Kevin Childs, Tony Sawrey & Donna Kelly

Photographers: Eve Lamb & Kyle Barnes

Accounts: Julie Hanson Delivery: Tony Sawrey

There’s a moment of aural frisson, the needle dropping, the prelude crackle just before the soundwaves hit and transport you to...

When the romance with retro vinyl began to bloom, Luke Cameron had something special to offer those smitten. A massive collection of vinyl records he’d been lovingly assembling over a quarter of a century, many of them coveted original pressings. Last September this local music lover and former DJ turned his vinyl record collecting bug - that had begun at the tender age of 14 - into a flourishing business, opening Daylesford Records. He has not looked back. “I love vinyl and have for many years,” says Luke. “I’ve been collecting vinyl for about 25 years and my personal collection is about 15,000 records.” Offering between 1500 to 2000 highly collectible vinyl records in store at any one time, Daylesford Records has taken off and is now inviting music lovers to help it celebrate its first birthday on Saturday, September 23. Read the full story at www.tlnews.com.au - Edition 285

Daylesford’s Brian Nash has long captivated art lovers with his powerful interpretations of the world around him, particularly landscape.

“I didn’t come to art, it came to me. For as long as can remember I was always drawing and painting and I thought everybody could do the same. I work in acrylic, oil, pastel and watercolour. I am completely self taught, I nurtured my art through observation and practice. I am mostly in the studio although I sketch subjects as well, but I like to finish work in the studio. I am mainly a landscape painter and living here in Daylesford I find inspiration and diversity within Hepburn Shire and the Central Highlands. I am in the process of producing a book of paintings featuring the many beautiful subjects of the Hepburn Shire. The book is called The Golden Shire and should be published by October; very exciting for me, I have been working on this project for over 20 years.” Read the full story at www.tlnews.com.au - Edition 285

It’s Friday on a chilly afternoon in Clunes but the sounds emanating from the town’s Attitude building have a distinctly sunny edge. The weekly ukulele group gathering is in progress.

This fun little group has been happening now for the past couple of years, ever since Attitude started and the pandemic lockdowns ended. Attitude – Ageing Well is a community-led initiative that provides a range of social, intellectual and physical activities for people aged 60 plus - but all ages are welcome. “It’s lots of fun,” says uke group leader, Clunes’ Victoria Reeve. Several years ago now, she took up playing the ukulele out of a long-held wish to learn a musical instrument of some type. A couple of years ago a friend, who wanted to learn to play this personality-packed little stringed relative of the guitar, urged Victoria to start a group in Clunes. The group meets every Friday from 3pm to 5pm at Attitude Clunes headquarters in Fraser Street. Read the full story at www.tlnews.com.au - Edition 286

An enduring love affair with the Australian landscape, its power and diversity, underscores the work of Daylesford painter and printmaker Greg Mallyon.

Greg’s abstract topographical images are inspired by an aerial perspective and his life story includes constant study, travel and rich exposure to European, Asian, Middle Eastern and Indigenous cultures. The many arts awards that this creative has collected along the way include the 2021 National Capital Art Prize for Landscape and the Digital Art Award for the 2023 Queenscliff Art Prize. “My paintings and prints are abstract landscapes inspired by an aerial perspective, however they fall within the long Australian tradition of depicting our unique continent. I am very experimental so I paint or print on surfaces including aluminium, Japanese rice paper, wood, canvas and European papers. The Australian landscape remains my major preoccupation.”

Read the full story at www.tlnews.com.au - Edition 286

Italian born Daniele Tarasco brings a personal passion for fresh, flavoursome food and his background as a high-end chef to running Meraki certified organic farm at Newlyn North.

Originally from Matera in Southern Italy, he and his wife Liv Reppas, have had the 2.4-hectare property on its rich volcanic soil at Newlyn North since 2015 when they began the three-year process of certifying the farm as organic. Their ethos is captured in the name of their little patch of paradise - Meraki. It’s a word modern Greeks use to describe doing something with creative flair or passion - putting “something of yourself” into what you do. “I’ve always worked with my hands from a young age,” says Daniele. “I’ve always been connected to food. When I was growing up food was a crucial cultural part of life and then I developed this passion for growing food. On school breaks in Italy I started to get into hospitality and cooking.”

Formerly Sister Maleita, serving as a nun with a French Order in New Zealand, Daylesford’s Millie Gouldthorpe came to painting later in life than many, but once she did the canvas exploded.

Millie’s style, which emerged in a torrent of creativity during the time of Covid lockdowns is vibrant, abstract expressionist, and the way she revels in the sheer joy of colour is all the more fabulous for the fact that she is classified as blind due to the development of a degenerative eye condition. “I took up painting during the Covid period...and I suddenly had this burst of energy. I knew I had to paint. So I went out there (to the studio). Pouring rain. Two o’clock in the morning, and got three canvasses at once. Got a yard broom, threw paint on the three canvasses, dragged the yard broom over the three at once. Later I was putting it outside and a friend, Miriam, came and said ‘Oh. You’ve drawn my homeland. The Wimmera’. Anyway, she bought it. A triptych.”

Read the full story at www.tlnews.com.au - Edition 283

Theirs is a tale of taking a punt and following that inner vision. For Springmount couple Carmel and Brett Masterson it’s the sort of story that anyone dreaming of a new life direction and of becoming their own boss really likes to hear.

Carmel was working in admin at a local school when an episode of the popular TV series MasterChef caught her attention back in 2010. More specifically a certain special ingredient being used on the show caught her attention. That ingredient was black garlic and Carmel didn’t know it then, but the strong interest it piqued in her meant that by 2017 she and Brett would actually be supplying MasterChef with it themselves. “Like most people I assumed black garlic was a variety of garlic, but after a lot of research we realised it was a painstakingly slow process of ageing the garlic in a low temperature oven for 40 days,” Carmel says.

Read the full story at www.tlnews.com.au - Edition 284

stonycreekgallery & sculpture garden

10 Stony Creek Road, Daylesford VIC 3460

P: (03) 5348 1884

E: info@stonycreekgallery.com.au

Trading Hours:

Open: Thurs - Mon 10:30 am - 5:00 pm

Closed: Tues - Wed

Michael Parker welcomes his Galleries and Sculpture Daylesford. Featuring original paintings sculptures, including mediums by regional

.Paintings

.Sculptures

.Jewellery

.Ceramics

Featuring Michael Parker paintings and garden including a variety of regional artists; Sculptures .Blown Glass Ceramics .Furniture

Castlemaine’s Neil Tait has built up an admiring following for his artistry when it comes to decorative ironwork.

This local creative - ably assisted by his team - designs and creates wrought iron pieces that are aesthetically pleasing works of art which frequently also serve the most functional of purposes. Neil’s business, Tait Decorative Iron, uses a variety of materials – including bronze, mild steel, copper and stainless steel, to create a unique range of sculptures and decorative pieces. Garden sculpture, wrought iron furniture, imposing gates, and beautiful balustrades that please the eye while providing a practical function are just a few of the sorts of pieces Neil creates. “I’ve had a range of satisfying projects, working on sculptures for landscape projects, playground elements, and custom gates. We did all the elements in the Castlemaine Botanical Gardens children’s playground, and we’ve just built a giant frog for a public space in Caulfield.”

Read the full story at www.tlnews.com.au - Edition 284

Free places!

Creswick’s parkrun

Jubilee Lake

Mt Franklin Reserve

Thomas’ Lookout/Cornish Hill

Glenlyon Reserve

Daylesford Mill Market

Lake Daylesford

Wombat Hill Botanic Garden

Trentham Rail Trail

Trentham Falls

Myriad mineral springs

Bush walks (above)

Lerderderg Gorge

Glenlyon Falls

Sailors Falls waterfall/lookout

Markets...

Daylesford Railway Market

Castlemaine Artists Market

Kyneton Farmers Market

Ballan Farmers Market

Maldon Market

Clunes Farmers Market

Trentham Farmers & Makers Markets

Glenlyon Farmers Market

Creswick Market

Leonards Hill Market

Talbot Farmers Market

Woodend Lions Market

Malmsbury Farmers Market

Daylesford Market

Trentham Station Market

Just Google for more info!

In a region like the Central Highlands, decayed relics, disturbed ground and old structures are never far from view and traces of the past cling stubbornly to the present.

The little village of Lyonville is a typical example. While the sound of renovations echo through the surrounding bush, the mementoes of the past are ever present. But within Lyonville there are two buildings, overlooked and ignored, that embody a far broader historical narrative; one that ranges from military logistics and the vast citizen armies of the Great War to the immigration diasporas of the 20th century. Nestled between the teacher’s residence and schoolhouse are a pair of Nissen huts. They are basic structures, sitting on wooden stumps, semicircular roofs curving all the way down to the ground. Nissen huts are named after their inventor Major Peter Norman Nissen of the British Army Royal Engineers and were developed during WWI. A Nissen hut could be erected by a six man crew in four to six hours.

Read the full story at www.tlnews.com.au - Edition 281

The creations of blacksmith Ernie Terry are the sort of pieces that stop people in their tracks and start conversations.

Forged from fire, steel and beautifully burnished copper - among other metals - they’re imposing, frequently life-sized and capture a fiery elemental energy that’s been winning this local creative plenty of fans and commissions – functional and purely aesthetic - ever since he opened his Lucky Monkey Blacksmith workshop and gallery at Creswick. “Years ago I bought a property with an old-school forge, and I always thought one day I would like to do blacksmithing. About eight years ago there were classes being run in Creswick and I just went to them and started my journey from there. Personally, I don’t find it physically challenging at all. In summer, if I know it’s going to be a really hot day I light the fire early so I’ll be finishing the work on the forge by lunchtime. Blacksmithing, to me, is like starting with that bit of metal and going into that space and then coming back with something else. It is alchemy.”

Read the full story at www.tlnews.com.au - Edition 281

VICTORIA'S BEST COUNTRY PUB.

Since 1887, the Pig & Whistle Hotel has nestled on a quiet corner in Trentham East, a living remain of the town’s early history. Truly a hidden gem, you’ll be transported back in time, with our newly-opened beer garden boasting uninterrupted views of Mount Macedon.

The Pig serves up a modern-Australian menu with honest hearty pub classics (we do a bloody good parma), along with seasonal global dishes. We take great care in delivering food of the highest quality, sourced from sustainable local produce, coupled with our praised friendly service.

The hotel is truly a local pub but a destination for all.

@pigandwhistlehotel

pigandwhistlehotel.com.au

705 James Lane, Trentham East, Victoria

Clarksdale is a town of 15,000 in the US state of Mississippi and considered by many music aficionados to be an important part of the development of blues music.

In 2006, Daylesford musician Adrian Kosky made his own pilgrimage to the area, but his journey turned out to be more than a fleeting visit. It led to love and marriage along with a lifelong connection to both Clarksdale and the contemporary Delta music scene. “I met my wife Carla Maxwell the year before while I was on a music scholarship in North Carolina, but returned in 2006,” says Adrian. “Next time I saw her, I had an ambition to get to Clarksdale and needed a ride. She gave me that ride, and the rest is history.” Together, as husband and wife, their music evokes the traditions of folk blues, combined with old-time Appalachia, while arousing the restless yearning that keeps them on a permanent walkabout between their homes in Mississippi and rural Victoria. They regularly play together as Table Hill.

Read the full story at www.tlnews.com.au - Edition 285

Let’s support our community and shop local!

“Locals supporting Locals”

Restaurants, Bakers, Butchers, Cafe’s, Local vineyards, Distillers, Brewers and of course each other.

Remember we offer free delivery, T&Cs apply. Delivery times are Monday to Saturday between 10am and 4pm.

We accept credit cards over the phone or we have an on-board eftpos machine. You will need to be at home for the delivery with proof of age if asked by the driver. Give the Foxxy team a call on 5348 3577. Keep safe, everyone.

Numbers you might need

Emergency – Fire, Police, Ambulance - 000

Daylesford Taxis – 5348 1111

Springs Medical Centre, Daylesford – 5348 2227

Daylesford Hospital – 5321 6500

Daylesford Police – 5348 2342

SES – 132 500

Daylesford Regional Visitor Information Centre – 5321 6123

Places you might need

Daylesford Post Office – 86 Vincent Street

ATMs in Daylesford:

Bendigo – 97 Vincent Street

Westpac – 45 Vincent Street

Commonwealth – 36-40 Vincent Street

ANZ - 52 Vincent Street

A secret you might like!

It’s often called a furphy but many people believe there are puma-like creatures in the Wombat State Forest and further abroad. Rumours say they came with US servicemen and were left behind when the war ended - but photos are always a bit blurry - like this dashcam. If you see one and take a clear photo, we would love to see it!

Renowned opera singer and director Christine Douglas moved to Daylesford in 2020, after decades in Sydney, renting then buying.

She and her husband have two groodles which they walk every day around Lake Daylesford and helped them find their tribe. “It was the best move of our lives moving here. We love it. I just can’t tell you how many wonderful people we have met.” Christine said some people looked at opera as highbrow and “it probably is”. “The difficulty with opera is that it was invented in Italy so Italian in the core language and for people to learn to sing in a classical way they do have to approach the Italian language to some extent to get the vowel sounds right.” Christine’s own move into opera came from being born into a theatrical family. She tried singing a variety of genres but everything sounded operatic. “It is just my voice.” She trained at the Victorian College of the Arts with Dame Joan Hammond and has since sung all over Australia in leading roles. Read the full story at www.tlnews.com.au - Edition 281

to

A300 to Mt Franklin 4km to Castlemaine 30km to Bendigo 68km C138 to Shepherds

C316 to Glenlyon 9km

to Malmsbury 27km

to Malmsbury 27km

to Kyneton 31km

to Kyneton 31km C138 to Flat km

Rosella Ln

C317 to Trentham 25km to Woodend 45km to Melbourne 113km via Calder Fwy

Barkas

Parker

Trewhella

Victoria

Frazer

Grenville

Stanhope

Stanley

Queensberry

Orford Daly

Camp

Duke

Vincent

Bridport

Grenville

Jubilee Lake Road

Harts Ln

Langdon Crt

C141 C317 A300

Millar

West

Perrins

Fulcher

Tierneys Ln

Duke Duke Duke

C141 to Sailors Falls 3km to Ballan 30km to Melbourne 109km via Western Fwy

MIDLAND HWY A300