Ballarat, Victoria

Ballarat University Buildings

Ballarat Railway Station
Not long after you pass the big orange sign saying “You are entering Wadawurrung Country,” you pass Pistol Club Road and a “Honey for Sale” sign, then it’s a straight run south (from Daylesford), to the semi-industrial beginnings of Ballarat.

It’s always a puzzle to me that, in an attempt to meet all the needs of modern western society, all the service industries are allowed to clutter up the main approaches into our cities. The brick works, the flooring manufacturers, the transport depots – you name it, they’re all there, lining the streets that take us into our city hearts. It’s hardly enticing. Why can’t they be hidden out the back somewhere? Why can’t we have more appealing leafy avenues showing the way like they do in so many small towns?

But I digress. I went to Ballarat for the first (and only other time), in 2010 – a trip most memorable for two things – the fabulous railway station buildings and rather unfortunate ‘accident’ I had when, distracted by the surrounding architecture, I plonked myself down on a step that wasn’t actually there. The pain was sickening and as I sat there, immobile, on the unyielding stone pavement, I wondered if I’d ever walk straight again. This trip could only be an improvement - as long as I kept my wits about me.

If you like architecture, it’s not hard to like Ballarat. The place is awash with splendid buildings that speak of the city’s early wealth. It was a gold rush boom town. Located on the Yarrowee River in the Grampians region of Victoria, it transformed from a small sheep station to a major settlement after gold was first discovered – rather ironically – at Poverty Point - on 18 August, 1851. News spread fast and suddenly every man and his dog wanted to try their hand at gold prospecting. Within months, migrants from all around the world had arrived.

Long, long before that though, this was Wadawurrung territory (and it still is). Their traditional lands spread 3,000 square miles across what are today the Geelong, Ballarat and Bellarine areas.

The Wathaurung Aboriginal Corporation (WAC), trading as Wadawurrung, is the Regional Aboriginal Party (RAP) for Wadawurrung country. It has a statutory role in the management of Aboriginal heritage values and culture within the region under the Victoria Aboriginal Heritage Act of 2006. An Act if I may say, that seems very recent given Aborigines have peopled this land for thousands of years.

I was only in town for a short time – and I was on a specific mission – so I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that I didn’t see a lot of overt references to the Aboriginal history of the place. Apart from an Aboriginal painting on the wall at my first coffee stop and a street art painting of an Aboriginal girl, I saw nothing. But I’m sure it’s all there.

The architecture however, cannot be missed. The city is well known for its well-preserved Victorian heritage and there’s a grandeur and opulence to both the commercial buildings and much of the city’s housing. It dominates every corner and is a clear show of the confidence early settlers had in their city.

The references to gold are all around too and one area of town – Sovereign Hill - is given over to an outdoor museum where visitors can experience the history and excitement of the gold rush era. You can pan for a speck of gold, explore underground mines, visit the Gold Museum and watch Redcoat soldiers (actors in uniform), firing muskets in ways that bring the now-famous Eureka Rebellion of 1854 to mind.

Often known as the Eureka Stockade, the uprising was fought between miners and colonial forces – the only armed rebellion in Australian history in fact. I’m not certain what the miners were revolting against but the military stepped in. The red-coated British soldiers’ role prior to that, had simply been to escort gold safely to Melbourne.

Personally, I’d rather watch jelly set than sit through the re-enactment of some historic battle, so I by-passed Sovereign Hill. Perhaps another time. But I have spent some time day-dreaming about the Welcome Nugget, which was found at Bakery Hill in Ballarat in 1858 by 22 miners. It is still the second largest gold nugget found anywhere in recorded history.

To call it a ‘nugget’ in fact, is a perfect piece of Australian under-statement. It actually weighted 68.98 kilograms – more of a gold boulder than a gold nugget; and it is reported that the first two men to find it fainted at the sight of it. True or not, I completely understand.

A year after it was found, it was melted down by a London mint to make gold coins – but not before several replicas were made, which are now on display in museums in Sydney, Melbourne, Ballarat and even in the Mineralogical Museum at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. 

So that’s Ballarat’s key historical points in a nutshell. I do regret not having time to visit the Ballarat Botanical Gardens – home to the greatest concentration of public statuary in Australia. This includes the Prime Ministers’ Avenue, where bronze casts of all of Australia’s Prime Ministers feature in a leafy walkway. In fact, within the last week, Tony Abbott was there, giving the thumbs-up to his bronze – the latest in a long line.

But I’ll be back and maybe then, I’ll also find time to chat with some Ballaratians, as they’re known, to find out what they think of their splendid little city.

Trentham, Victoria

Trentham is a pleasing little town – the gateway to the Wombat State Forest they call it - 97 kilometres north-west of Melbourne. Like many people, I’ve passed through it numerous times on my way to Daylesford because, as my Dad used to say, “Blink and you’ll miss this one love.”  It’s that sort of place – a little cluster of shops edging the main road and, until recently, not a lot of enticement to stop.

These days they call it a food hub, a gourmand’s little heaven. The former travel guide critic in me is always a little suspicious of these sorts of descriptions but for this, my first trip back to Trentham in over a year, I was prepared to give it the benefit of the doubt. It’s not like me to pass up a good meal after all.

It was just before 9am when I drove into town along the Avenue of Honour, admiring the bulky heft of St Mary Magdalen’s Catholic Church, its associated school and adjacent residence of some nature. The Catholics do a good church I have to say and the imposing cluster of brick buildings at the southern end of town hints at early settlement and the ‘jostling for best position.’

Down a slope and around the corner is the Anglican Church (above) – one of those little brick ‘storybook’ churches, resplendent in a modest, Anglican way, with bright red wooden doors (open!) and a little blackboard at the entry announcing “Sunday worship at 9am” followed by the almost erased words “Come in, rest, pray.”

I took them at their word. It’s not often these days that you actually find church doors open – not in New Zealand anyway; and as I have a liking for church architecture, I lifted the old black, metal latch on walked in. Tip toes for some obscure reason.

I love the silence of churches and the way the old timbers seem (to me) to harbour a multitude of personal histories. It was dark, with a scarlet carpet runner leading up to the sunlit altar – the light showing the way, you might say. The old wooden pews bore neat, tapestry-style upholstered cushions and I wondered how many years of ‘church bottoms’ they had gifted comfort to. Records of the first Anglican Church (wooden) start from 1864, so that suggests a pretty good bottom tally.

I didn’t linger. Call me a heathen if you must but at 9am I was more interested in finding coffee. I wandered in the general direction, taking in the unmissable presence of “Wooden Duck Antique Farmhouse and Vintage Industrial,” which inhabits the grand old wooden building that began life in 1863 as the Commercial Hotel. The hotel licence apparently ended in the 1970s but the cellars are still there – albeit with the lines to the bar now disconnected.

The line of wooden duck decoys along the upper balcony is a hint of the oddities within. Few things stir my curiosity like a good second hand or antique shop but even I was surprised by the blonde, pretty-boy mannequin’s head that stared back at me from a little glass case. He looked startled and if I’m not mistaken, a little indignant about being locked in a cabinet. Who wouldn’t be? Especially when your nearest neighbours are a metal flamingo and a pair of stuffed, wrestling foxes.

Two sections down, on a corner, the Trentham Post Office 3458 proudly announced itself as the ‘Agent for the Commonwealth Bank of Australia.’ The Australian flag was hoisted on the pole but hung there, sullen, determined not to flutter; and someone’s forgotten beige beanie hat was slung over the wall tap. I suppose I should have paid more attention to the town’s war memorial on the corner but I was distracted by the beanie and who might have left it there. And would they ever come and retrieve it?

It’s fair to say that not a lot happens in Trentham at 9am on a weekday. The town – like many in this area - comes to life from Thursday through Sunday, when over-worked Melbournians head out of the big smoke looking for a quiet country retreat, a spa, a bit of boutique shopping and some of that gourmet food I mentioned earlier. Then the shop doors open, the cash registers jingle and everyone looks busy and ready for a quiet Monday.

That said, the streets were lined with vehicles when I started my stroll towards caffeine, despite the fact that jaunty little shops like The Spotted Pony, Dr B’s Bookstore, Robin-a-Bobbin, Jargon and Two Fat Wombats were all sealed tight against the chill air.

And speaking of chill air, don’t think that for one minute that because this is Australia it doesn’t get cold. The coldest temperature ever recorded in Trentham was minus 8-degrees and snow and sleet fall here on average, 13 days per year.

But back to Two Fat Wombats with its store window jam-packed with a strange assortment of animals – some, like the sheep and the wombat, with lift-off backs that revealed a cunningly concealed Esky – or as we call them in New Zealand, a chilly bin. They appear to be made of some type of fibreglass material and, along with the door notice “Learn Chinese in Five Minutes,” the ”Sex After Death” joke taped to the glass and the ’backyard’ filled with a bewildering collection of wild (largely African) animals – from giraffe to gorillas – I couldn’t help wondering about sales figures. And who might buy a life-size fibreglass giraffe to take home.

Then I discovered Chaplin’s with its window notice “Best Coffee in Town, No Hashtag Required.” It seemed worth a shot. On all previous visits to Trentham, I’ve gone to Red Beard Bakery and Café, which is known for its fabulous sour dough breads (below) and its 100-year-old Scotch oven that ran in the original Trentham Bakery onsite from 1891-1987. The oven weighs 75 tonnes and stores enough heat from one firing to bake 600 loaves. The oven floor measures 16 square metres; and these days, visitors can watch bakers using the oven through a large viewing window.

But they were closed and Chaplin’s (above) wasn’t. Far from it in fact, it was pulsing with life – local life. This was clearly the community hub and I could see I was in the right place at the right time to watch Trentham locals hugging each other and getting about the important business of coffee drinking.

There were crocheted rugs slung over the backs of old wooden chairs – for those aforementioned freezing days no doubt; and a flurry of Charlie Chaplin memorabilia. I sat there wondering …why Charlie Chaplin…in Trentham? It wasn’t until later in the morning that it all made sense – when another local told me that Mel, who runs the show, also doubles as a Charlie Chaplin impersonator.

I fell upon a little collection of historical booklets, mostly put together by the Trentham Historical Society. “Take a Walk Around Trentham,” “The Trentham Falls Scenic Reserve,” ”Early History of the Trentham District,” “Trentham Bush Nursing Hospital,” “Trentham’s Sporting History,” “Trentham at War” and “A Hard Day’s Walk -  Growing Spuds around Trentham.”

It seems important at this point, to make reference to potatoes, given that they have played such a prominent role in the town’s history. From 1850 to the present day, the deep volcanic soils of the Trentham district have made it a prime potato-growing region. If you know where to look, you can still see many of the old spud huts that were used to house the itinerant spud diggers; and there are a number of farmers still producing spud crops –most of those have contracts with big companies like McDonald’s and McCain’s and others are growing niche varieties for the market and hospitality trades.

In the 1850s spuds were the staple diet of the nearby gold-diggers and the town still stages the annual Great Trentham Spud Fest, a quirky event which began in 2008. It was somehow reassuring too, to see that Chaplin’s, in time-honoured fashion, was giving the traditional baked spud pride of place on its lunch specials board – served with house-made coleslaw, candied bacon, sour cream, garlic butter and tasty cheese. (Eat your hearts out gourmands).

Talk of gold-diggers made me think of Trentham Falls, Victoria’s highest single-drop waterfall that plunges 32 metres into the Coliban River, just two kilometres from town. (That's the area where gold was first found). In “Early History of Trentham District” there’s a charming photo of a Victorian family sitting beside the falls sometime between 1900 and 1908. They’re decked out in typically prim Victorian wear – high-necked frilly blouses, hats, gloves and suits for the men. Completely impractical attire for Australia in any era!

But they look a whole lot happier than I remember being when, a couple of years ago, my son and family lured me to the falls with the promise of a picnic beside the river. I still remember it vividly –walking down the steep track then, as is my son’s wont, leaving the track completely and heading into thigh-high undergrowth in the vague direction of the sound of running water.

I couldn’t hear water and all I could think about was snakes and poisonous spiders lying in wait for one of my chubby legs to bite into. Every rustle, every tiny movement harboured some threat to my safety and I never relaxed for a minute, not even when the sandwiches came out of their wrapping. Suffice to say I’ve never been back.

Back at Chaplin’s, I moved on to “Trentham’s Sporting History.” I’m not a rugby or football fan of any description and I barely warm up at the mention of cricket but I figured the district must have spawned some famous person who liked donning whites, or rolling about in the mud.

And perhaps it has but I never found out. I was so completely enthralled by what must surely be the high point of Trentham’s sporting history – the annual Annelid (Worm) Race, which started in 1980 and continued for the next decade, ending rather abruptly for no apparent reason – although a change of date or a change of venue have been suggested as possible reasons.

I would like to have met the person who instigated the first Worm Race. He – I assume it was a man – sounds like a quirky character worthy of further investigation. And while you may wonder if he raced worms on his own, the answer is, No, he didn’t.  The first race attracted 26 entrants and over the years that number grew to over 200, with people travelling inter-state to attend the annual Australia Day event. It seems a shame – in this age of gourmands and boutique shoppers – that things like worm races have lost their place on the Trentham calendar.

I left Chaplin’s much wiser – and much more watchful. It had become clear over Mel’s coffee that there was much more to this little town that first meets the eye. It’s the same with any small town of course – that’s why I love these places. They seem slow and quiet but scratch the surface and you discover all manner of curiosities.

Trentham may be establishing itself as a gourmand’s little heaven but it’s the oddities, the curiosities and the mundane that enchant me about the place. It may be ‘trending’ for visiting Mellbournians but I love the fact that it’s still true to its rural roots. It still has handwritten notices for lost cats taped to shop windows; and town noticeboards that advertise things like Hay for Sale, a Writer’s Retreat to “unlock your inner voice,” and line dancing classes (Mondays. $4 per person).

And old men still gather at Trentham Town Square to laugh and talk together and play bowls – or maybe it’s petanque in this gourmand age?

Nature

As a recent arrival to Victoria from Christchurch, I’m still a little apt to think of natural disasters; and this morning, as I sat in the silent, serene Mount Macedon gardens of Tieve Tara, I couldn’t help trying to imagine the place razed to the ground by bush fires.

This is exactly what happened on February 16, 1983 – Ash Wednesday - now one of Australia’s most well-known bush fire events. That tragic day, fires swept across Victoria and South Australia, killing 75 people and causing widespread property-related damage – in Victoria alone, that was estimated to be over $200-million in damage.

Most of Macedon and much of historic Mount Macedon (northwest of Melbourne) and just 20 minutes from where I’m now living, was razed to the ground, including many heritage listed 19^th century mansions and famed gardens.  Tieve Tara was one of those.

Originally part of an extensive property bought by W. Christian in 1854, it was purchased by George Grantham in 1907 and the original house was built on the present site. It then passed into the hands of C. Arthur Cooper in 1937, before it was destroyed by fire in 1962. A new home was built and that was destroyed in the 1983 Ash Wednesday blaze, just after it had been purchased by John and Dawn Wade.  

They rebuilt and stayed at the property until the current owners, John and Judith Brand, purchased it in 1995. They’ve made extensive alterations to the partially destroyed gardens and with its majestic old trees, huge garden beds, ponds, lakes, walkways, bridges and bog gardens, it’s now one of a number of Mount Macedon gardens often open to the public.

It’s a peaceful place now but this morning when I visited, I couldn’t help reflecting on the brutal potential of Nature.  The Christchurch earthquakes have shown me that none of us is ever guaranteed complete protection from that brutality. We may enjoy the beauty that surrounds us – and we’d be silly not to – but it’s a fragile façade.  We never know when things will alter, when our lives will be changed forever.

We all bounce back of course - eventually- but it seems important to me to remember Nature’s tragedies, if only to all-the-more appreciate what surrounds us.

Tieve Tara is now heading into winter. The last of the golden and scarlet leaves are clinging to the skeletal tree branches and it’s quiet, still and damp. As grand as any garden is though, I often find that the true beauty sits within the details – the curling birch bark; a rippled trunk; a forgotten bird’s nest high above; the magpies marauding the strawberry tree;  the stark reflections in the still lakes; one golden leaf on dark , wet twigs, determined to be noticed.

www.gardensoftievetara.com.au

Painting Trees

Cast paper torsos - one of the last major cast paper works I completed. Exhibited at Fisher Gallery Auckland and Sargent Gallery, Wanganui in the late eighties.

The last time I exhibited any artwork was at the Australian National Library in Canberra in 1986, as part of a New Zealand book arts show.

That was 31 years ago!

Then I switched to a full-time career as a freelance journalist/author and while book arts have continued to be a passion, I've never painted  since the 60 or so solo and group exhibitions I took part in all those years ago.

Now I'm facing down that yawning 31-year gap, wondering how to take the leap from 'art-before' to 'art-now.' As I set up my new studio space, I've felt inadequate, overwhelmed and more than a little bit terrified. I sit before my blank canvases and I wonder what to do.

I wonder if any idea I have, has any merit at all.

I wonder in fact, if I have completely 'lost my touch.'

Eucalyptus bark

So paralysed had I become that I decided to start painting trees - not pictures of trees, trees literally. Real trees. It seemed appropriate given my fascination with Australian eucalyptus, with the vivid colours of the Australian landscape and with Aboriginal art. 

So a few days ago, I dragged a huge 10-foot eucalyptus branch into my studio and I started painting it - totem-like. No plans, no expectations, just the child-like joy of rediscovering colour, pattern and texture in paint.
I  never imagined I would feel the exhilaration of painting again so soon. But it was there, hiding under all the nervous energy, the pathetic inadequacies and the fear of making the wrong brushstrokes. I feel like I have unleashed something that has been dormant for far too long.

I've quickly been seduced by possibilities and in between Australian paperwork, I am continuing to play with paint - to watch, to think, to read. I'm waiting quietly for things to happen in their own time. I'm letting ideas 'incubate.'

I'll stick with painting 'trees' for a bit longer, as I get to know a new medium.
Because, in the mood of the change that has taken me from Canterbury, New Zealand to Victoria, Australia, I have decided to try painting in acrylics. I used to paint in watercolours many moons ago and acrylics don't seem too far removed. There are a lot of technical similarities.
So I'm stacking the odds in my favour.

Yesterday, I spent the day at Mount Alexander Regional Park, near Castlemaine, sitting in complete silence among thousands of eucalyptus trees of all shapes and sizes. As I sat there listening and watching and photographing,  I began to sense the hazy beginnings of a canvas taking shape in my head.

It's elusive still.
Abstract.
One minute quite certain; the next, slipping away, undefined, like a dream you can only half remember.
I have hope.
I feel excited.
And I think I''m going to be okay.

All I really want is to continue to feel enlivened by the whole art-making process.
I want to 'shine a light' on the dark recesses, on my inner thoughts and imaginings.
I want to produce something I am happy with.
That's all.

That 31-year gap still seems unreal in a 'how-did-that-happen' kind of way but I feel certain that eventually I will make the leap to the very different kind of artist/painter that now resides within.
My success or otherwise seems irrelevant at this point.

Change

The rural view from my new writing spot in Tylden, Victoria. Magic at all times of day.

I have been thinking about change a lot in the last ten years.

Even before the first 7.1-mag Christchurch earthquake struck in September 2010, I was restless,  looking for something new. It's not that I wasn't enjoying my life as a freelance journalist, photographer and author, I just needed a fresh injection of inspiration.

I most often found that by taking overseas working trips - usually into Asia - and pitting myself against the odds; facing down strange languages and different ways of living, and coming home inspired, knowing more about what I was truly capable of, and ready to write again, in whatever medium seemed appropriate at the time.

Then came the Christchurch earthquakes and that devastating time of change that knocked everyone in the city for a six.

It was CHANGE in capital letters.

It was change we didn't ask for.

It was change that inspired.

It was change that for me

 Forced the real change that I had been muttering about for years.

For only the second time in my adult working life - in almost 43 years in fact - I found myself in full-time employment in *an office.*

It was another major change, a new challenge.

It seemed to fit my skill set.

But after four valuable and inspiring years working for Te Runanga o  Ngai Tahu, something odd started to happen - I started to hanker after my former life as an artist.

Something stirred inside me on one of my frequent visits to Victoria two years ago and it never went away.

It nagged at me.

And when I was at a leadership course in Auckland last year, we were all asked if 'this was where we wanted to be in 10 years, 20 years, 30 years?'

And for me, the answer was a resounding 'No.'

It was the penny that finally dropped - the cue I needed to take another risk, to make another change and to return to the work that stirs my soul.

Mist rising over the lake - the first thing I see each day in Tylden,  Victoria

So here I am, two days into my new life.
I am setting up a small art studio again.
I have changed since I worked full-time as an exhibiting artist
(roughly between 1971-1983).
I will not paint the way I used to, of that I can be almost certain.
I will change mediums to begin with but beyond that, I have no clue of what will evolve.
I'm happy with that.
I'm not in any hurry.
I have no expectations.

And I will go back to writing fiction again - short stories.
I will return to writing non-fiction books.
And I will return to more photography - not that I've ever really left that behind.
I'm excited, enlivened, inspired.

As I sit here in the silence of a Sunday afternoon - Mother's Day in fact - all I can hear are the raucous sulphur-crested cockatoos in the gum trees, the bossy crows  squabbling out in the field, and the intermittent rusty rumble of the iron windmill slowly turning in a grove of nearby acacia trees.
I have time to think.
I have a head full of words.
And I'm ready to face down a new change.

I guess I could have bought a Harley Davidson, or a sports car or something, and sailed off into old age with the wind blowing in my hair and smell of grease on my clothes.
It seemed messy.
I didn't fancy it.

Instead, I chose to leave Christchurch, to leave New Zealand in fact - walking out on the life I had worked so hard to create, with just two suitcases and a whole lot of gungho spirit.
I think it might be the best change I've made in a while.