There’s something to be said for arriving at a new place in pitch black darkness: you never know what you’re going to wake up to.
It could be a glorious vista or, as was the case with Bruce many moons ago in Tasmania, something rather less glorious. After a long day’s driving, he and his travelling companion decided to pull off the road and sleep in the car. Several beers, a few hours and a cricked neck later, the sun rose over the horizon to reveal they were parked on a garbage tip.
More recently, he and Fran approached Daylesford, in the Macedon Ranges, under cloak of darkness.
“It’s feels more like redneck country here than the Yarra Valley or the Dandenongs,” said Bruce after they’d left the rain-soaked Western Highway.
“You were right about the rednecks,” said Fran a couple of hours later as they downed a pot in the public bar of the Daylesford Hotel: male count – 15; female – 2 (Fran and barmaid); beer guts – 15 (including the barmaid); hefty moustaches – 10 (sadly not including the barmaid); missing teeth – too many to count.
First impressions…
Local kids rebel
The following morning darkness lifted to reveal a quite different town.
The rednecks had been joined by hippies, day-trippers, masseurs, antique hawkers, new age loons and a surprisingly high number of sisters doing it to themselves.
Daylesford, despite the sorrowful leaden skies, was really rather quaint, even boasting a cafe offering Breakfast and Beer (and a bloody good range of beers too). It seemed a place to which many of its inhabitants had escaped; the healer who gave Fran her aura-realigning massage even tried to enlist her for the town’s loon army.
Cakes, second hand books, trees, upside down street signs, lakes, spas (lots of spas), folk music, artsy crafty things and a laidback, gentle vibe were everywhere – some young kids even took to the street to play a xylophone for passers-by.
The loon army's influence begins to manifest...
Best of all were the antiques. If you’re into that thing (and, boy, has Fran shown a hitherto unknown predilection for all things tatty in recent weeks) it’s marvellous, especially the Mill Markets where you can easily escape the rain for a few hours deciding whether the battered old trunk or the Elvis room divider are more deserving of your cash.
Anyone heading there in the winter months might want to avoid the Cobb & Co cottage attached to the Town View, however. It’s nice enough and very central, but, Mr Owner, whatever you might wish to believe, the wall-mounted heater was not powerful enough to heat the room and there was not enough hot water to fill the spa bath without assistance from the kettle.
