Heathcote, Victoria

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Six and a half thousand cars a day flash through the Central Victorian town of Heathcote, on the Northern Highway half way between Echuca and Melbourne.

Historically, one of the locals tells me, the town was known as the place to stop “for a pee and a pie.”

These days, local businesses have recognised that traffic as ‘business potential’ and they’re luring them in with coffee – pub and coffee, antiques and coffee, gifts and coffee, bakery and coffee, wine and coffee; everyone’s jumped on the coffee bandwagon and you can find good coffee and pretty little courtyards in the most unexpected places.

The significant beneficiaries of all the passing traffic though, are the town’s two bakeries. They’re generally pumping and in the summer, it’s not unknown for a fifty-metre queue to form down the road – hence there are bakery expansions ‘on the drawing board.’

Heathcote (Pop: app 3,000), is a testament to the growth and rejuvenation of small town Australia. Like many of the little Central Victorian towns I’ve visited, it exudes an optimism that is almost palpable, as locals band together to help their place “reach its full potential.”

It’s one of Australia’s growing wine regions, famous for its award-winning Shiraz, and with around 70 wineries in the area (about 30 of them small, boutique family operations), people are flocking to the region to savour the tastes.

            Nestled at the foot of the McIvor and McHaig ranges, Heathcote came into being on the back of gold discoveries in the 1850s. At its gold rush peak, Heathcote had a population of around 35,000, with people predominantly living in tents and shanties on the gold fields. At that time, there were at least three breweries, 22 hotels, two flour mills, a bacon factory, a hospital, banks and several wineries.

Today, wine is the ‘new gold’ and a number of new varieties like Sangiovese, Viognier, Vermentino and Tempranillo are being grown in the area. Cellar doors are proliferating and the annual Heathcote on Show in June, the Heathcote Wine Show in August and the October Wine and Food Festival, are all putting the town on the wine lovers’ map.

For me, Heathcote is all about its long, pencil-thin High Street, bordered on one side by sportsgrounds, a few  businesses and houses; and other the other, by a string of very fine old shop fronts and elegant gold rush buildings. Chief among them are the old Court House buildings (1864-1989) [now housing a craft store], the Town Hall, the old banks (now repurposed), and the stunning little Mechanics Institute (1900), that I rather fancy living in. I’ll just have to find new premises for the Senior Citizens, the Girls Guides and the Lions Club.

One of the old banks is now base for a wine company and a chocolate café; and like most small towns, you get the classic example of the one-stop shop, offering everything from gifts, candles and toys to massage, alternative therapies, meditation, numerology and tarot readings. A chiropractor offering pain-free back treatment is wedged between the pub (Cougars, 6 for $21) and a winery cellar door; and a takeaway (or eat in) is wedged between a funeral director and a newsagency.

Real estate windows always make interesting reading and apart from a good number of houses for sale and very good prices, you can also pick up an olive grove (38 acres with 1,500 olive trees established 13 years ago), for AUD$350,000 - $380,000 – which seemed extraordinarily cheap to me; or  boarding kennel – house and business, for AUD$820,000 - $860,000.

I spent most of my time in Heathcote taking photographs and talking to people, so I’ll definitely need to go back. I’ll wait until spring, when all those vineyards nudging up against the town, come into leaf. I expect it will be beautiful then. There are numerous good picnic spots around the town and I rather like the sound of The Valley of Liquid Ambers – I’m not sure if that’s trees, or local code for some special liquid beverage that I probably shouldn’t drink while I’m driving. I intend to find out!