Allan has a bottle of French Champagne chilled and ready for our arrival, an hour passes before we stop talking and Allan gives us a tour of his newly acquired home in Woodend. Allan moved here from Stirling just 6 months ago after spending 9 years in the Adelaide Hills, where we would catch up frequently. His home is beautifully set up for a single person but has the added bonus of a seperate self contained guest suite. We are fortunate enough to be his guest for the next two days. Woodend is one of a number of Victorian towns that have had a renaissance over the past 20 years. Melbournites looking for a tree change flocked to country towns, where the pace of life is more relaxed and housing less expensive. A great place to bring up your kids without the social pressures of the big cities. The desire to follow this path has only grown since the Covid pandemic, and the resulting ability to work from home that modern technology brought during that period. These towns had blossomed bringing more services, facilities and transport options, essentially causing a population shift back to the country a reversal of the last 100 years where country people have slowly moved to the cities seeking further education and or employment opportunities. Woodend is now a popular tourist spot for Melbourne day trippers, sporting cafes, restaurants, boutique shops and even wine bars. Living in a wine state as we do the tendency is to forget that Victoria also has a serious number of wineries. Allan is keen to show us the cosmopolitan High Street, in particular the wine bars so we are soon off to discover their secrets. The concept of a wine bar is that one can sit and sip a glass of wine with a plate of small food without having to buy a whole bottle or a three course meal. The first wine bar the Woodend Cellar and Wine Bar is situated in a small older shop bringing to mind a combination of pokey little bottle shop and restaurant combined. With bottles stacked on shelves seemingly randomly and a small number of wooden tables set for meals. The afternoon is warm allowing us to sit outside in a beer garden type atmosphere where we can enjoy the fresh air, wine food and conversation. The latter keeps us there for another hour before we move onto “600 Above” the other wine bar in town. Aptly named after the towns altitude in the Macedon ranges. This is a modern, brightly lit environment with wine bottles stored upright on metal shelves along the rooms walls that surround the open space that is filled with tables and chairs restaurant style. On one wall a huge wine fridge stretches for metres keeping your choices cool. A Bubbly waitress attends us as we order a glass each of local wine and a platter of cheeses for two, there are three of us but Allan suggests the serving might be large. He is right the platter would feed 6, more a meal than a snack. The rest of the afternoon soon passes as our conversations continue until the last drop wine is gone from our glasses and at least half the platter. Back home we stay up late into the wee hours of the night catching up with events since our last meeting, only stopping for a pizza & salad dinner.
The next day we are off for some sightseeing and local knowledge, our first stop is Trentham a quaint village 22 kilometres west of Woodend along tree lined roads and rolling farm lands beyond. A feature of these towns is the neat weather board houses that have seen generations of families lives pass through them. Now they have become chic, fashionable renovation projects for another generation of homemakers. The towns main streets have become vibrant tourist shopping districts a world away from online shopping, they offer relaxing browsing in a charmingly historic environment that harks back to those imaginary romantic times. An example is Marcelle and Mr John’s antique store, the proprietor’s a couple of gay male entrepreneurs that have moved lock stock and barrel from Melbourne to open this tiny store filled with exquisite items from the past or with at least a hint of the past. They are both quite characters, Mr John sports a wide pointed greying handlebar moustache, while the clean shaven Marcelle speaks excellent English with a slight Dutch accent. They hold court amongst very fine small furniture pieces and objects d’art while customers squeeze around each other trying to ensure no breakages occur. Allan has his eye on a Lladro fine porcelain figurine from the 50’s or 60’s. A young elegant male hunter relaxing on a tree stump with rifle resting in his hands. Apparently male orientated figurines are rare, with most of a more feminine nature. They have some beautifully hand painted lamp shades with orientalist scenes that attract our attention but with our imminent move and new build we are not ready to add to our decor just yet. The couple are engaging and spend a good deal of time talking about themselves and their pieces for sale as if they are their own precious pieces, that I suppose they are in one sense.
With more than a few customers milling around, I am feeling a little claustrophobic and step outside leaving Amanda and Allan to continue their treasure hunt. Outside I notice a curious cast concrete trough by the roadside. On further inspection it is filled with water and water Lillie’s. The trough it turns out is one of 700 hundred manufactured in the 1930’s and donated by will by an English entrepreneurial couple, who in passing left instructions that these troughs should be donated to country towns in Victoria and NSW, for the purpose of ensuring that working horses would have somewhere to drink when ridden or driven to town by their owners. George and Annis Bills had a particular connection with the RSPCA and a passion for horses. Some of these troughs made it to England and even South Africa. A few still exist today and right here is one of them.
Allan eventually emerges with his purchases, accompanied by restrained Amanda although sorely tempted. They fill the back of the Mercedes estate wagon and we are off to the next town, Daylesford.
On the way we stop of at a winery with the rather attractive name of Passing Clouds, one of those wineries that had broken through the grape wall that divides South Australia and Victoria in the 90’s to achieve some recognition. Unfortunately they have a wine tasting policy that states one has to pay to taste wines, $15 for 4 wines $20 for 6 wines, redeemable if one purchases 4 or more bottles. We convince the server that we only wanted to try and buy one wine, their Chardonnay. He reluctantly agrees and we quickly taste the wine buy a bottle and depart.
Daylesford is a much bigger town, more a town than a mere village, about another 23 kilometres further west. With more facilities than Trentham the district has attracted more tree changers. It also attracts day trippers from Melbourne, with its relaxed shopping, many cafes and restaurants. Lunch time is upon us and Allan suggests the Boathouse at the Lake. The lake is set in a parkland setting and the carpark is full of visitors, picnicking by the lake or strolling around it. The Boathouse is an elegant picturesque lakeside restaurant, serving A la carte meals of a more substantial nature than we anticipated, a coffee and a sandwich is more our need at the moment. We leave the lake and drive into town to the main street to find a more suitable cafe.
Lunch over, one of the town’s attractions is a Woollen Mill. The Creswick Woollen Mill offers tours with a shop on site but is a little out of town, no problems, they have a substantial shop in town. As with Bendigo this area, as is true of most of southern Australia really has its economic history seated in the sheep industry. All that Australia could grow in terms of fleece would be shipped back to England by the tonnes. Until synthetic fibres came into being wool provided the mainstay of fabric production in the 19th century.
The Creswick Woollen mills shop is everything the Bendigo one should have been. While the factory gave Amanda a delightful experience among the many yarns it offered little else. This modern bright and airy shop filled to the brim with stock. Woollen blankets, sweaters of many different styles to suit male or female, in a myriad of colours are piled upon the many counters or hung from racks around the walls. Wool features as the predominant fabric but there are blends with cashmere, alpaca and even possum fur. They also have a sale on, there is that dreaded word “Sale” more common in these times than ever before but bound to excite dread or delight depending on one’s proclivities. The service in shop is outstanding, the once again gay male manager delights in attending to our needs and is proud of his domain offering ready answers to our plentiful questions. An hour passes like a minute and hands laden with woollen goods we depart to browse the remaining street with many other shoppers who had made the trip to Daylesford for the sales. Our hands full of parcels meticulously wrapped, like in the old days when service by the large department stores attendants had the time and budget to make shopping a pleasant experience, we head back to the car for our trip home. Another warm memorable day in central Victoria over we are looking forward to tomorrow as our time to depart draws nearer.