Maldon, Victoria

I’d heard a lot about Maldon, long before I ever went there. “You’ll love it,” someone said.

“It’s just the prettiest place, so many lovely old buildings – I’d live there in a heartbeat,” said someone else.

“It has a great sense of community and well-priced real estate,” and so on and so on.

So last weekend, I set off, expectations high and eager to see what I would make of this new place.

It wasn’t a long drive – just 40 minutes or so from where I live and just ten minutes northwest of Castlemaine (140km NW of Melbourne for those who want a bigger landmark). It sits on the slopes of Mt Tarrengower in the middle of an agricultural, pastoral and mining region in the heart of the Victorian goldfields region.

 Gold was found there in 1853 and within a month 3,000 miners had arrived at the Tarrengower Fields to try their luck. Another month after that, the population was said to be around 18,000. These days, it’s a more modest 1,500 or so but everything they say about the town being little changed from the 1850s is true.

My head spun in every direction trying to take in all the old gems, all the old typography preserved on the outside of so many of them. It was a little like stepping back in time and easy to see why the 2007 Australian film,” Romulus, My Father,” set in the 1950s was shot there. It was also easy to see why the National Trust of Australia declared it Australia’s first Notable Town in 1966 – this on the basis of its well preserved goldmining era buildings and the number of different architectural styles that make up the settlement.

From the outset, it was all about the architecture for me; but there was something else too, an ‘intangible essence’ about the place that I loved. As someone said after my visit, “it’s genuine old world and it hasn’t been hijacked by gourmands and pretensions.” I couldn’t have put it better myself. The locals were friendly and there were boutique stores and cafes aplenty but I never got the feeling they were trying hard to be trendy. They just seemed to be going about their business – unhurried and unworried about what ‘the outside world’ thought of them. It was refreshing and I slowed my pace to fit the mood of the place.

This is a town designed for the leisurely amble and with the sun warming my back, I went from shop to shop, café to café and into everything in between. There were numerous antique and collectible shops, the prerequisite craft/interiors places, an art studio or two, a terrific print shop, an amazing shop filled with antique lace and linens, a traditional lolly shop, a deli, a car garage and mechanics repair shop right beside a patchwork quilt and fabric store, a Christmas shop (!!), the traditional old grocer with an amazing town noticeboard outside and at least two wonderful independent bookshops.

(Independent bookshops seem to be very well represented in small Victorian towns. I haven’t been in one town yet that doesn’t have at least one excellent and very enticing bookshop – and long may that be the case).

I gazed longingly at the Maldon Hotel and its beautiful iron fretwork balconies and wondered what wonders and small town secrets might play out in its Clydesdale Room. I noted they offered a range of lunches – curried sausages $12; beef lasagne $15 - with an invitation to step inside and partake. I watched a steady trail of people going into the tiny bakery, some lingering for coffee at the outside tables, others clutching their brown bags full of edible goodies, some sitting down on the public bench seats because they obviously couldn’t wait to go any further before eating.

And I stood, gazing in awe at the huge pomegranate tree that spread over the bakery roof and adjacent courtyard. I’d never seen a pomegranate tree before and initially, I thought the bright red globes hanging from its bare branches were apples. Unseasonal I thought, but then, it was much warmer here (19-degrees), roses were still blooming and all the yellow wattles were in bloom – so why not apples? It wasn’t until I put my glasses on that I noticed the burst fruits and the millions of seeds spilled over the ground below, that I realised they were pomegranates – and I couldn’t stop thinking about the waste, and how I would have paid NZ$7-8 for a single pomegranate in a New Zealand supermarket.

The locals hardly seemed to notice. Perhaps they all had pomegranate trees in their home gardens? It seemed as good a reason as any, to get into my car and explore the residential streets. Like so many of these old Victorian mining towns, the housing stock is right up my romantic, idealised alley – all colonial villas, iron fretwork and cool, generous verandahs and balconies for those hot Aussie afternoons. Forget the nightmares of repairs, renovations and maintenance, I cling to the dream of characterful architecture equalling the perfect, inspirational retreat laced with history and intrigue, and I won’t be told otherwise.

 I did spot one lovely property for sale – Robinson House (above, top right), Circa 1864 – a cute Gothic, double-brick home with 13-foot ceilings. I sat awhile on the roadside imagining myself living there – sweeping its polished floors, lounging in its spacious sunroom, pottering in the garden, shivering in its hard-to-heat rooms. I’ve imagined worse things, lived in worse places. Somehow though, I don’t think I’ll be moving any time soon. That would take at least two pomegranate trees, a mango orchard, three fig trees and an avocado tree.

But I will very definitely be visiting again.

There's plenty more to see yet.

Getting Lost

         

Yesterday, I decided to go for a drive to photograph gum trees. I’m captivated by them and getting a good photograph of them can be difficult, given their propensity to grow in groups, casting a myriad of shadows upon one another.

More often than not, for that very reason, I find myself photographing close-up details – the swirls of coloured bark, the smooth, white, ghost-like limbs, the coarse trunks, the giant cathedral arches they form over Victoria’s country roads.

I set off from home on an unplanned tour. I had it in my mind to head south, in the direction of the gloomy, dark roadsides that often give me a sense of unease. For the most part, gum tree stands fill me with joy but once in a while I come upon cold, deeply shaded areas that unsettle me. I don’t know what it is – a sombreness that speaks of something lonely and unknown. It doesn’t frighten me exactly but it does set my imagination racing. I thought familiarity may give me a better understanding.

As it was, I ended up taking a host of ‘diversionary roads’ – those little byways that seem to pull me in to a new exploration. I’ve always been keen on exploring ‘the side roads of life’ and when I came upon a dead fox on the road, I knew I was on the right path.

I’ve only ever seen two live foxes in Victoria – from a distance, despite the fact that they are very common here, so a dead one – roadkill – provided me with my best opportunity yet for a close-up look.

Vulpes vulpes (the red fox) was first introduced to Australia in 1871, when some bright spark thought they’d be good for sport hunting. They were released into the wild in South Australia and around Geelong in South Victoria and within two decades, they had been declared a pest. Today they range right across Australia in a wide variety of habitats and they are a significant threat to vulnerable farm animals and to native wildlife.

Trees and foxes aside, this area of Victoria (loosely Central) is endlessly pretty. I prefer it in summer when the colours are vibrant and raw but even in winter there are arresting landscapes in every direction.

I drove through Fernhill – little more than a herd of goats, a trio of alpaca and a cluster of houses - and one of those the former general store; and back up to Trentham and  potato-growing country; then back down to the Pig & Whistle.

It seems an unlikely location for a pub but back in the mining and peak potato-growing days this part of East Trentham apparently sported three stores (now the Plum Tuckered Inn), across the road. Over time they were converted into a residence and these days they welcome paying guests, who can slip across the road to sample the famous Pig & Whistle Sunday roast. There’s a beer garden too and people come from miles around.

When I parked outside, I could see straight into the dining room – all prissy and prim with white table cloths and a Christmas tree, complete with twinkling lights, beaming out from one corner (in July).

I was actually more interested in the crazy hedge that had burst through the fence to grow in an interesting, ungoverned fashion; and the house next door to the pub that had strung up its teapot collection along an internal fence and balcony.

It was at this crossroads that I had a decision to make – left back to Woodend, right towards Blackwood, or straight ahead on an unknown road to an unknown place called Bullengarook. I opted for the latter and a few hundred yards along, I noticed a small sign (warning enough for any sensible navigator), declaring Bullengarook 20km away. Why go the way everyone else goes, I thought to myself, and off I went.

Within minutes the unsealed, red dirt road had taken me into deep forest – wet, dank, gloomy, silent, and not a soul in sight. The road became progressively narrower, more potholed, more corrugated, more horrifying and I began to question my decision.

I’m all for getting lost in most circumstances. It’s a worthwhile part of any trip to anywhere. It takes you away from the comfortable, the familiar and it makes you think. You see more, you learn more and you (hopefully) learn to deal with panic. Being tossed into the unpredictable heightens your curiosity. So I wasn’t about to turn around unless something made continuing impossible.

All the above said, I travelled almost the 20 kilometres in second gear, praying the car wouldn’t stop. With every corner, every hillock I hoped to emerge but it was endless and with my car windows fogging up (sweaty anxiety), I wondered  not only where I would come out but if I would come out at all!

Signs indicated that was I adrift somewhere in the Wombat State Forest, later merging into Lerderderg State Park. That’s 700km sq and 142.5 km sq respectively. I think I could be justified in a small swell of panic. It felt like I was the last person left on earth - until suddenly, a white 4WD appeared in my rear vision mirror. That should have been a relief. It wasn’t. My head naturally turned to an unscheduled encounter with a mass murderer. Resigned to my fate, I pulled aside.

As he flashed passed – in his POLICE vehicle! – I waved furiously hoping he might stop to help but he just tooted and sped off. It gave me hope though, that I wasn’t too far from civilisation (or a murder scene), and I felt confident enough to stop and pick some of the pretty pink flowers that had been taunting me from the undergrowth.

Thankful for wintering snakes, I stepped into the bush to pick a handful of what looked to be some kind of heather. I kept a lookout over my shoulder, half expecting the policeman to reappear to apprehend me for picking some rare forest specimen in a state park.

(In later research I’d narrowed it down to two likely candidates – either the Common Heath (Epacris impressa), or some kind of Scoparia, notable for flowers exactly like these and it’s prickly foliage. The latter is apparently endemic to Tasmania – a long way from Lerderderg State Forest in Victoria; but then, I was a long way from home too.

A mere ten minutes later, I passed a group of off-road vehicles and dirt bikes and then a house emerged from the shadows and I hit a sealed road again. My relief was palpable.

I’m not sure I ever found Bullengarook. Other than a small cluster of houses and a recreation reserve, there seemed to be no visible sign of the 681 people (2006 Census) who reputedly live in the area. I never saw any wallabies, nor any wombats, echidnas, wedge-tail eagles or cockatoos who are said to live in the forest either. My memory is clouded by one policeman, a shocking road and a megaton of gloom.

It’s true though, you do learn by getting lost. Next time I see a small grey sign and a red dirt road leading into an Australian gum forest, I will go in exactly the opposite direction

Chewton, Victoria

Chewton is a tiny speck of a place – a dot on the map you might say. You pass through it on the way to Castlemaine. I’ve always liked it and I can’t count the number of times I’ve photographed its tiny, exquisite miners’ cottages.

After you’ve turned off the Calder Highway, you pass through a series of forested gullies and suddenly, there it is, announced by a ‘Welcome to Chewton’ sign and another declaring it “Formerly Forest Creek, site of the world’s richest alluvial goldfield ever.” I like the way they clarify things with the addition of the word “ever” – just in case you’re a doubter.

      The Main Road takes you through a series of little humps and hollows into what is a typical goldfields remnant. Settlement followed the watercourses where gold was being extracted in the early years of the diggings; and today, tiny old miners’ cottages line the road, with more modern dwellings clambering up the hillsides beyond.

Gold was discovered here – in Jaara Country (home of the Dja Dja Wurrung people of the Kulin Nation) – in 1851. That changed everything. People swarmed in from all over the world – as they were wont to do during the Central Victorian gold rush – and the township grew rapidly, without much of a plan. Hillsides and native vegetation were decimated in the frantic search for gold and the need for timber to shore up the mines. As a result, today’s vegetation is mostly stringy bark and iron bark forests with a sturdy undergrowth of hardy natives determined to reclaim their place on the depleted hillsides.

The town (almost a stretch of the terminology), is now surrounded by the Castlemaine Diggings National Heritage Park (c 2002), which you can explore on foot, or by bike. There’s plenty to discover if you’re that way inclined, including the Wattle Gully Mine (c 1859), which operated until recently and is now the centre for the re-exploration of the Castlemaine gold fields.

I’ve always maintained that, if I was meant to go underground, I would have been born a mole, so I’m much more interested in the architecture of these historic places. And despite its tiny size, Chewton is rich in architectural treats – little dwellings that hint at the small scale lives the miners had; and one of two grand public/commercial buildings and churches that lend the place an unexpected heft.

There are now a few shops, a pub, an antiques store, an old town hall and Chewton Post Office but almost all of them were closed when I rolled in. As a matter of interest, Ottlery’s Butcher Shop (C1860s), is one of thirteen butcher shops that once serviced the town. I guess miners must have been into a good steak after a tough day digging. Those were the days when Chewton could boast around 70 businesses in its Main Street.

       

The Primitive Methodist Church (c 1861), is one of the more elaborate structures in Chewton – a curiously ornate place designed by Crouch and Wilson – said to be an unusually early use of the Gothic style by the Primitive Methodists. Its most distinctive design element is the pair of flying buttresses projecting at angles from the facade.

It’s now in private hands I believe, unlike the quaint St John’s Anglican Church (c 1858) [above], that sits quietly on top of Poverty Hill, surrounded by land reserved for but never used as a burial ground.  It was silent on my most recent trip, except for the wind whistling through trees and the occasional squawk of a nearby crow. Everything was locked up so I’ve never discovered if the external austerity is a sign of what lies within.

I’ve always liked a good cemetery and since St John’s didn’t have one, I followed the sign to Chewton Cemetery, which was apparently gazetted as the town cemetery in 1859, to take the place of the smaller goldfield cemeteries. I was surprised by the size of it – big, in a word; and neatly divided into all the different religious denominations: Roman Catholic, Anglican, Methodist, Presbyterian, Lutheran and possibly a few heathen stragglers if the unmarked graves are anything to go by.

I’m always fascinated by this old tendency to separate the dead into neat, orderly rows of like-minded church-goers. I wonder what they thought would happen if they were all buried together, side-by-side? I kept thinking about that as I drove out of Chewton – that an the thirteen butchers’ shops.

People of Melbourne II

I spent the day in Melbourne yesterday and the place was packed with people - a stunning Victorian winter's day, chilly but sunny; and the first day of the school holidays.

These are some of the people I photographed.