Ballan, Victoria

When I drove into Ballan and saw the ‘Watch for Koalas’ sign in the middle of a residential neighbourhood, I knew I was going to like the place. Anyone who looks after these furry little Australian icons gets a pat on the back from me. However, it should be noted early on, that despite looking in every tree I passed, I never spotted a single koala myself.

My visit to this little town, 78 kilometres northwest of Melbourne, was a fleeting one – but not quite as fleeting as the first time I discovered it on a trip to Geelong a year before. I had liked the look of the place then, as I flashed through on my way south, but I didn’t have time to stop. And I was reluctant to visit during the searing hot summer because I had to drive through several forested areas to get there and I was apprehensive about bush fires.

 It was early when I arrived this time – around 9am. Not much was happening. The streets were quiet. I graciously blamed that on the hour of the day, although I suspect not a lot DOES happen in Ballan. It became obvious fairly quickly that it is something of a rural service town – one of those small places the farmers come to for their seeds and manures, their tractor repairs and such, followed by a quick nip into the local agents for a paper and perhaps a Lotto ticket, followed by a quick ale (and maybe a casserole lunch) at the local pub. And like most Aussie towns, Ballan certainly had more than one of those.

As a footnote to that paragraph, many of the farmers in the area are descendants of members of the Australian Defence Forces, who settled their families in the wider Ballarat district after the war.

I probably could have walked around the whole of the township in an hour or so but I chose to drive – after all, I had gauged fairly quickly that unless you had chosen to live there, Ballan wasn’t the sort of place that commanded a lingering visit. That said, it does have a clutch of wonderful old buildings and ‘wonderful old buildings’ always set my imagination to wondering about life in the early days – who lived there and why? How much they had paid to build their handsome dwelling, who lived in it now? Where did they work? Were they one of the hundreds who now commute to Melbourne by train to work every day?

Located near the Werribee River (I never even saw that!), Ballan was established in the 1830s when one Robert von Steiglitz settled in the area. He named the new town that sprang up in 1838, after Ballan in Ireland. Gold was discovered in 1851 and the town’s population more than doubled in the years thereafter. The Ballan Hotel in fact, dates back to that gold rush era.

The first Mechanics Institute was built in 1861 but the current building sits on land that was purchased in 1881 and the building, complete with a new 1922 façade, now houses a hall and library.

 There was another population boost in the 1980s and 90s and with that came new amenities – a hospital, new shops, schools, cafes and more. And by 2016, the Census reported a population of 2985. Whether it has declined or increased since then is hard to tell but there is a lot of new housing (suburbs of awfulness), so I suspect the trend for Melbournites to move out of the city to the quieter, cheaper confines of a small Victorian town on a main commuting line has continued here.

It seems though, that Ballan is a town large enough to have an industrial estate, AND a uniformed meter reader. And judging by the posters around town advertising groups and classes, a lot DOES go on here – from quilting groups and assorted other stitchery to fitness groups, community luncheons, baby groups, floral arranging (single session $50), Hatha yoga, art classes, high teas and belly dancing classes.

For all its quietness, there was something about Ballan that appealed to me – some intangible that ‘dwelt’ in the wide, tree-lined streets, the pretty old houses, the quaint old public buildings and the smiling residents – the few I saw at least. I might not choose to live there at this particular point in my life, but I would certainly visit again.

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!

Clunes, Victoria

Clunes is all about books. The annual Clunes Booktown Festival is proof of that, when, in April-May, over 50 visiting book traders from around Australia join forces with the town’s seven permanent bookstores to present what many have called “an unequalled weekend of book browsing.”

That’s when thousands of secondhand, collectible, small press and out-of-print books go on sale; and people can attend workshops and author talks. It’s a book bonanza and anyone who loves books finds their own little piece of rural Victorian Heaven.

    There are around 22 international members of  the International Organisation of  Booktowns ( www.booktown.net) and Clunes is the first in Australia and one of only two in the Southern Hemisphere (at time of writing). [The other is Featherston, New Zealand]. During the Booktown Festival, the town’s main street is closed to traffic and the usual population of around 1,700 swells to an impressive 18,000 or more.

Booktowns are a European concept and by definition, a booktown is “a small rural town or village with a concentration of secondhand and antiquarian bookshops.” Clunes became a member of the international organisation in 2012.

All this is what drew me to Clunes. I’m a book lover and I’d heard a lot of positive things about the little town, which owes its existence to the Victorian goldrush. It’s an historic gold mining town, located in the heart of Victoria's Central Goldfields region, just north of Ballarat and about an hour and 20 minutes’ drive west of Melbourne CBD. 

I arrived ‘by the back door’ – a short cut from Blampiad that wound through a fascinating rolling, agricultural landscape peppered with startling green cones (old extinct volcanoes) dotting the horizon, and the relics of old mining buildings and dredging piles.

And suddenly, there I was, driving passed a bedraggled array of houses on the outskirts of town on a day that what was clearly close to inorganic rubbish collection day – big heaps of domestic dross piled at gateways waiting for collection. It wasn’t a tantalizing beginning.

But the Clunes State School 1552 was. Its impressive form dominated the end of Canterbury Street (where it met Paddock Street – which for no reason at all, amused me immensely). I was just beginning to think ‘this was it’ when I rounded a corner and came face-to-face with the quaintest little streetscape I’d seen in ages….well….since Maldon at least.

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There’s a ‘Wild West’ element to it all and it wasn’t surprising at all to learn that, like Maldon, Clunes is sought-after by film-makers as a location. In Clunes’ case there have been many but when Mel Gibson and his team arrived in town to film “Mad Max,” [1979], they set off a chain of events that continues today – in much the same way as “Lord of the Rings” fans descend upon the New Zealand movie sets, “Mad Max” fans arrive in Clunes on their motorbikes, park outside the pub and sit down for a beer and a yarn about the movie.

“When the War Began, “Doctor Blake,” “Ned Kelly,” “On The Beach,” “Halifax f.p and the recent remake of “Picnic at Hanging Rock” were all also filmed in part or their entirety at Clunes.

Many of the original old gold rush buildings are still standing and ‘in good working order’ and although it was quiet when I arrived at 10am, I could see why it was becoming increasingly popular. I liked its unhurried air, its sense of rural comraderie, evidenced in friendly smiles and happy hellos. As corny as that sounds, it’s a noticeable thing in small town Australia that I really enjoy. People are happy to stop for  chat, even when they don't know you.

        

Even as the day wore on, and locals and visitors fell upon the cafes like thirsty camels in a desert, the locals were still stopping in the street to chat – and when I say “stopping in the street,” I mean it literally. No one seemed at all bothered about the fact that roads were actually designed for cars

While I began this little tale by saying ‘Clunes is all about books,’ it is also without a doubt, about the people and the architecture. With every small Victorian town I visit, I am surprised all over again by the wealth of well-preserved old buildings, their scale and their presence in sometimes very small communities. And the revival of small-town Australia is flourishing. For Clunes, it’s been on the back of film sets, its Booktown Festival and to a degree, the decision by Wesley College, Australia's largest co-educational private school, to establish a campus for Year 9 students in the town.

Opened in 2000, about 80 students take up residency in the Wesley Clunes Residential Learning Village in the centre of town and become part of the local community for an eight-week period each term, where they learn how to take care of themselves in preparation for an independent adulthood. I couldn’t think of a better place to do that.
www.clunesbooktown.com.au

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.