A new eight-lot housing subdivision proposed for Hepburn Springs has got the green light to proceed subject to multiple conditions following a Hepburn Shire Council vote late last month.

The proposal, relating to a 7,327 square meter site at 12-14 Vanina Street, within a residential zoning area, had attracted 12 objections.

Concerns about increased traffic flow, impacts on native flora and fauna and that the proposal was not in keeping with the existing neighbourhood character, and that the density was too high for the Hepburn township, numbered among objectors’ concerns.

The application had originally proposed an 11-lot subdivision but several planning amendments that had later been lodged by the applicant had reduced the number of proposed lots to eight, creating stronger protection of existing native vegetation on the site.

A report to the council noted that: “Whilst the development will result in the future loss of some surrounding native vegetation in order to create defendable space, the applicant has accepted council officer advice to ensure an acceptable balance between vegetation loss and fire protection has been reached through the implementation of carefully considered building envelopes which will control the location of future dwellings on the proposed new lots.”

Due to the number of objections, the matter went before councillors for a decision at the council’s February 25 meeting, with the planning officer recommendation supporting approval of the application subject to numerous conditions.

These included bushfire  protection measures, traffic management, stormwater management, landscaping, screening and vegetation planting requirements, as well as building height controls among others.

But not all councillors were in support of the officer’s recommendation to grant approval, with Cr Brian Hood opposing it, naming concerns about emergency access provisions and design factors among his reasons for doing so.

“The bit I really struggle with is either a court bowl or battle axe driveway. To me they are very, very urban and not consistent with the character and amenity and rural setting of our towns,” Cr Hood said.

“This needs a bit more work and therefore I can’t support it.”

Ultimately, though, the application got through in line with the planning department’s recommendation with councillors voting 6:1 in favour.

In support, Cr Lesley Hewitt said “I’m impressed with the thoroughness that has gone into this application and also the willingness of the applicant to do the negotiation and to shift it from an 11 lot subdivision to an eight lot subdivision.”

Words: Eve Lamb. Image: File

We live in a house of many guises – beginning as two goldmine offices in Doctors Gully, Hepburn Springs  before being hauled onto logs by a team of horses to become the basis of a family cottage, after the closure of the mine sometime in the early 1900s.  

Those early pioneers must have been avid gardeners  judging by the selection of beautiful century-old trees and shrubs and traces of rock walls they left for us to build upon.  

We thank them, almost daily, as we are greeted by an ever-increasing variety of insect-eating and nectar sipping feathered friends, who daily visit our bird bath and seed feeders unknowingly helping us in our garden by pollinating our fruit and feasting on many of the insect and grub invaders.  

Among the regular feathered visitors are a couple of king parrots and a pair of  gang-gang cockatoos, who stop over on their yearly pilgrimage to feed on our ash trees.

One particular king parrot pair now have the cheek to land on our balcony and herald their arrival.  Last year the male left the others, came up and fed from my hand, while the female wavered in the distance.

So I’m hoping she will have the courage to accompany him all the way this year.  

 Q: A struggling liquidambar

I shall be grateful for your advice on a suitable replacement for a variegated  liquidambar we planted in our north-facing lawn last spring. It seems to be suffering from wind burn as the leaves are turning black at the edges. We plan to shift it to a more sheltered spot at an appropriate time and replace it with a more sturdy one once it has shed its leaves in winter. Perhaps the blackened leaves could  be caused by overhead watering and strong winds. Sarah, Creswick  

A: You have answered your own question when you say “perhaps it had too much water!” Especially if it’s mostly on the foliage. With your young liquidamber surrounded by lawn and, more than likely, nearby tree roots it would be unlikely to get its fair share.  

I would suggest that you should leave things as they are until late autumn when deciduous trees are bare and the soil super moist. You can then carefully lift your  liquidambar and replant it in a new shady non-north facing plot.  

As for a replacement I would suggest you would do very well with the bronze leaf  “smoke bush” (cotinus coggygria) which is a large shrub/small tree with large olive green leaves which turn bronze to purple in autumn.  

Q:. I have a lot of red gum seeds that have fallen off the tree and still remain in the pod. Some are open but most are still closed. How can I get them out without damaging them? Ray, Woodend  

A: The best way of opening the pods would be to place them in a dry box with a layer of dry sand on the bottom and leave them in the sun. They should soon dry out  and open of their own accord.     

Your garden questions answered!  Simply email your enquiry to:  Garden queries c/o glenzgarden gmail.com  You should see your answer in the next edition of The Local.

Mostly I charge my Tesla at home with a normal 10-amp plug, which means I  wake up in the morning with a full tank. That way I am ready to traverse the plethora of potholes we refer to as roads around the Hepburn Shire.  

But I got caught short a little the other day and found myself at the Daylesford Town Hall’s charger. I guess I should have picked up on the clue, which was the spider webs around the handle of the charger, meaning no one had been there for  a while.

It clearly wasn’t working and on further investigation it had been dead the whole time, well before Christmas right through to mid-January.  

While parked in the non-operational charging bay I noticed that out from under the barrier around the Town Hall renovations white liquid with paint flakes was pouring all over the footpath and flowing into the drains.

It was clearly coming from the works behind the screen and my guess was they were water blasting the paint off.  

And although on mere battery fumes I thought it my civic duty to report it to the council. To  council’s credit the fix was almost immediate, in the form of a guy with a hose blasting away the  evidence into the drains. WTF…  

Now the only other charger in the immediate area is at the Hepburn Mineral Springs Reserve,  which has two charging stalls but only one fitting suitable for a Tesla. So I limped along, by this time on four per cent battery capacity.

Luckily, a fellow  who had just plugged in and was about to enjoy a two-hour treatment at the Bathhouse, gave me his spot. Thank you kind sir.  

I bought the Tesla before Elon turned into even a bigger wanker than he was by  joining Trump and making a Nazi salute at the president’s inauguration last Monday.  

But I do think there is noticeably a lot more electric and hybrid cars on the road. In fact, over 120,000 EVs or non-ICE (internal combustion engine) cars were purchased  by Australians last year.  

Surely it’s time to do a bit better around the Hepburn Shire, where even in terms of tourists trying to come for a holiday, range anxiety is a huge issue.  

We have the land and I am sure there are a lot of grants around; besides tourism is a huge economic driver and our local economy is flailing.

For those in the world of EVs, charging is everything, destination charges such as the 50 amp at the bathhouse or the one in the main street of Daylesford (which doesn’t even rate a mention on the  Plugshare app) are okay if you are having a bit of lunch and you plan to be at a place for two to three hours.  

But we need a bank of serious superchargers somewhere in the Hepburn Shire,  ones that deliver 250–500 watts for a full charge in 20 minutes.  

We need this infrastructure not only so we can embrace the change to electric  and give locals choice as to what cars they have. We also need this infrastructure to  literally drive tourists up here.

I feel like all the amazing work that has been done by local businesses and various tourist affiliations over the years to create our village destinations will go to waste if we don’t keep up. EV rant over…  

A lively program of music is in store as the beautiful Hepburn Mineral Springs sets the scene for next month’s Sunset in the Springs free community concert series.

Staged with support of the Hepburn Shire Council, the free concerts are set for Friday February 14 and the following Friday February 21 and get under way from 5pm.

Locals and visitors are encouraged to bring a picnic and blanket, then settle in for two evenings of stellar local music in the beautiful setting.

There will also be a range of kids’ activities, face painting with the youth-led COOKED van cooking up a BBQ on the night.

Acts set to take to the stage on Valentines Day, Friday February 14 include Dayfever, The Stamps and local supporting artist Sasha Taylor.

The line-up for Friday February 21 features: Milkpunch, Pyrex Duo and local supporting artists Stevie and Arlo.

Both concerts in the series are set to run until late.

Local kinders and early childhood services in Daylesford and Hepburn Springs are among those to share in $1.4 million in state grants to upgrade IT equipment, the local MP for Macedon says.

Member for Macedon, Mary-Anne Thomas in recent days announced that seventeen services across the Macedon state electorate will receive funding through the latest round of Building Blocks IT grants which will help services deliver educational programs and support administration.

Grants up to $2,000 are being distributed to over 760 eligible services for equipment such as laptops, iPads, screens and IT hardware used to deliver kindergarten programs.  

Those to benefit include:

• $2,000.00 for Daylesford Community Childcare Centre

• $1,769.26 for Daylesford Preschool  

• $1,769.26 for Hepburn Kindergarten  

• $1,560.18 for Trentham Early Learning 

• $1,701.82 for Woodend Kindergarten

• $1,344.45 for Macedon Kindergarten  

• $860.00 for Kyneton Kindergarten  

• $1,882.20 for Goodstart Early Learning Kyneton  

• $1,882.20 for Goodstart Early Learning Woodend   

• $1,738.18 for Manna Gum Family and Children’s Centre  

• $1,465.36 for Swinburne Avenue Children’s Centre  

• $1,411.73 for Riddells Creek Kindergarten  

• $1,634.55 for Lancefield Kindergarten  

• $1,634.55 for Romsey Kindergarten  

• $2,000.00 for Goodstart Early Learning Riddells Creek  

• $2,000.00 for Goodstart Early Learning New Gisborne  

• $1,999.00 for Rothschild Road Kindergarten at Willowbank Primary School

The Building Blocks Program, which offers grants to contribute to kindergarten infrastructure and equipment, is rated important to ensure the success of the roll-out of the Best Start, Best Life reforms across Victoria.  

Member for Macedon, Mary-Anne Thomas:  “We’re delivering IT upgrades and improvements to more than 760 eligible childcare and  kindergarten services across the state, so teachers, educators and children have the facilities  they need.”  

“These grants build on our investment in early childhood infrastructure and free kinder –  providing the tools for childcare and kindergarten services to provide quality services to local  kids in Macedon.”  

The scars are still there. Not only mentally from the cruel abuse Richard “Tommy” Campion and his sister suffered in a home after being abandoned when young but also on his back from beatings. 

Their parents didn’t want them, he says. Their mother “caught a train to somewhere”. A couple of days later their father left them in a children’s home never to be seen again. 

Somehow, Tommy emerged after 14 years to eventually carve out a career as an award-winning news photographer. Now he and his partner Marilyn have left the traffic, crime and high-rises of the Gold Coast for the tranquillity of Hepburn Springs. 

But at 76 he continues a 20-year campaign to bring to justice those responsible for the whippings, bashings, floggings and starvation by staff at the Church of England North Coast Children’s Home in Lismore, NSW. 

A brief reprieve did come when his sister Suzanne, who is two years older than him, was adopted by a family when aged eight, mainly he believes, to look after their seven children. 

“I fretted and so I was sent to join her. That family reckoned I had been raised by animals, so a few weeks later I was sent back to the home and didn’t see my sister for eight years. 

“When we did meet there was no heavy connection. We thought about each other, but the love was not there. She was far more emotional than me, yet later we came to love each other dearly.” 

To him, what happened at the home was sexual, psychological and physical abuse. Anglican Ministers used leather belts on children who were cheeky, had not made their beds properly, or for stealing food to supplement the gruel. 

Frightened, skinny, asthmatic and pigeon-chested, he was found a job in a hardware store at age 16. With the help of a matron, the home had “come good” the year before he left. 

Now he was mixing paint, “a tough gig”, while paying board at the home. He laughs at the contradiction. 

Next, he spotted a newspaper ad for a cadet photographer who “must be keen and outgoing”. He had probably only taken a couple of snaps in his life, so he borrowed some and, to his amazement, got the job.

Even then, he thought he was letting down those in the home because they had found him the hardware job.

Joining the Northern Star in Lismore aged 17 was exciting, even though it meant mixing chemicals, proofing and filing. 

“I learnt more in a month than I had from age two to 16. I learnt how to talk to people, look them in the eye, react, be responsible. 

“Somehow, I got ambition, yet I was nearly sacked so many times for not dressing properly. I couldn’t wear a tie because we were choked in the home. When I told the pictorial editor this after he retired, he cried.” 

The new-found ambition had him trying for about seven months to join Queensland’s major paper, the Courier Mail. 

“I was told I would never get a job there until someone died. And then someone did.” 

He spreads his hands to show the width of the pages of this big broadsheet, excitedly telling of the arrows down the page showing where a car went off a cliff. 

“I learnt a helluva lot. And I also had a job lined up at The Australian.”

In the then traditional way, he was interviewed in a pub by three photographers. Not only did he get this job but he worked for six other Murdoch papers while based in Brisbane.

“It was the bees’ knees…ever heard about knocking a bastard down and he gets up again?” 

These were amazing, thrilling newspaper days, which for him included getting grabbed by security when he got too close to the future King Charles at a media scrum.

“I was so pleased to go to work. I hated taking holidays. Crimes, pop stars, The Beatles, Joe Cocker, Johnny Cash, movie stars such as Sammy Davis Jr and Frank Sinatra, important news events I shot them all, as well as an action shot of a dog chasing a cat.” 

He turned down the offers of jobs in Sydney because he was married and had a daughter to care for. There are now two grandsons who shine at sport and music. 

When he was able to leave Brisbane a freakish encounter stopped him. When he paused at traffic lights he was spotted by a sports editor who asked what he was up to.

This editor was scathing of Sydney and talked Tommy into working two days a week for the Gold Coast Bulletin, which led to five years in News Ltd’s bureau there covering murders, kidnappings, fashion, sport, social and huge court cases. 

His national award for spot news came when, thanks to an alert reporter who spotted the dog squad, he zoomed in on one of three child kidnappers who firstly wanted a $1million ransom, halved that and reduced it to $250,000, but was then caught.

But a court story led to disaster. His photo of alleged prostitutes, some masked, supporting a charged nightclub owner outside a court, was not used. Tommy’s instructions to ignore a picture of three college girls going into the court, which was on the same roll of film he sent in, was disregarded. The newspaper mistakenly identified the girls as prostitutes.

Within two days he was gone. No one would talk to him. He was in despair. No newspaper would use him for a few years.

Much later, he was exonerated when found that the pictorial editor, who sacked him and ruined his career, had written the erring caption.

Tommy was reduced to living on handouts in a two-roomed house. The pain of abuse still hurt, so he wrote a five-page letter to the Royal Commission on Institutional Child Abuse, telling of the nightmares he suffered and wondering about the other children and how they were coping.

The response was an apology from a leading Minister who said that Tommy had “lived in an Anglican home which should have been safe, but clearly was not.”

Tommy adds: “I was believed and asked to fill out a form and would get $78,000 compensation.” He refused the offer because others had to know that they had the right to compensation if they had been abused.

Tommy put advertisements in 20 papers asking for anyone who lived in the home to get in touch. His phone rang off the hook.

“The church then began fighting back and the fight went on and on, causing abuse again.”

So powerful is the church, he said, that only the Royal Commission was able to order proper compensation.

He began to cry as he told of giving evidence for most of a day of the three-week hearing.

“The church lied, even at the Royal Commission.” He does not hold back. “They are a sneaky, nasty, hypocritical pack of bastards.”

In an effort to have the Bishop who was in charge defrocked he has written hundreds of letters, becoming an advocate for about 70 people.

“I got a Bishop and a Minister kicked out of the church, but they were still able to call themselves Bishop and Reverend.

They were not involved in the abuse but in the cover-up and failed to act within church rules.

“If the church had been like a church and said sorry and acted it would have been different. They wouldn’t have ended up in the Royal Commission.”

And there may not have been the deaths, jail terms and the like for those from the home.

Although embarrassed, he stood for two days outside the Anglican church in Brisbane with a protest sign, denouncing the abuse and failure of duty of care, while copping abuse from some passers-by.

After waiting six years he got in to see the leader of the Anglican Church of Australia six times. His letter writing campaign continues, and so does his photography, now with gentler pictures, such as kangaroos nearby, interesting people and serene scenes.

He and Marilyn share their house with their two cats, Garry Barry and Alice.

“As soon as I walked into the house here, I knew this was home.”

Words: Kevin Childs | Image: Contributed

The Hepburn Springs EV charger is so far proving to be the most popular charger in the Hepburn shire, at least for the last financial year.

The Hepburn Shire Council, quoting a post from Hepburn Energy, in recent days reported that people are charging their cars at Hepburn Springs for longer.

The council reported that: “Out of all of our EV Chargers across the Hepburn Shire in FY24, the Hepburn Springs charger had the highest number of uses and MWh consumed. This abated a total of 32.88 tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions”.

“In particular, people charge their cars for longer sessions here, for both locals and visitors alike.”

The data findings prompted council staff to wonder whether the local attractions may have been a factor, “Positioned at the bathhouse who wouldn’t want to stay a little longer?” they pondered.

The council has also reported recently that the Creswick EV charge station is now back on line after it had been off line due to a technical issue.

This story based on a public social media post issued by Hepburn shire Council.

Entries for the Venie Holmgren Environmental Poetry Prize are now open until Sunday, August 4.

The winner will be announced at the Words in Winter festival in Daylesford on Sunday, August 25.

In her late 50’s Venie Holmgren began to write poetry and her first published anthology, The Sun Collection for the Planet in 1989, became a poetry ‘best seller’.

At the same time, she applied her environmental activist skills and commitment to the campaign to save native forests near her home on the far south coast of NSW, where she was arrested twice for obstructing log trucks.

After 16 years of solo self-reliant living she moved to the local town of Pambula where she penned her travel memoir, several more books of poetry and travelled widely as a performance poet.

In 2010 Venie moved to Hepburn where she wrote her last poetry collection, The Tea House Poems. In January 2016, Venie ‘caught the bus’ at the age of 93.

Judges for the prize are Tim Loveday and Jodi Vial. Tim Loveday is a poet, writer, educator and clown-lark and in 2023 was the winner of the Venie Holmgren Environmental Poetry Prize.

As the recipient of a 2021 Next Chapter Fellowship and 2022 Writers’ Space Fellowship, Tim’s work explores class, masculinity, rurality and climate collapse.

In 2022 he won the Dorothy Porter Poetry Award, in 2023 he was shortlisted for the David Harold Tribe Poetry Prize, long-listed for the Wyndham Flash Fiction award, and came runner-up in The Kyogle Poetry Prize.

Jodi Vial writes across the forms of poetry, short fiction and creative non-fiction, with a focus on the intersection of literature, landscape and history.

She is a PhD candidate in Creative Writing at the University of Newcastle, working on a hybrid memoir that centres women’s archival voices.

In a previous life, she was a newspaper journalist. Her microfiction has been shortlisted and longlisted in the Joanne Burns Microfiction Prize, and her writing has been published by Spineless Wonders, Recent Work Press and Papatuanuku Press.

Link: www.holmgren.com.au

Hepburn Springs local Jim Milesi reckons he may well be Australia’s only professional speech therapist who also works as a dry stone wall builder.

It’s a part-time occupation that lately his brother, Vince, is also enjoying.

The Milesi brothers are currently working to restore a 30-metre stretch of an extensive historic dry stone wall on the private property of Trefor John and Tina Winzar at Elevated Plains just out of Hepburn Springs.

Running alongside the Hepburn Springs-Newstead Road, the wall is understood to be about 130-140 years old and one of many built by the area’s early Swiss-Italian immigrants who include the Milesi’s own forbearers.

 “This is a dream job,” says Jim whose love of the time-honoured art of dry stone walling started way back in childhood on the family’s Hepburn Springs property.

“We had some dry stone walling on the family property and I always liked it and started mucking around with it then,” he says.

Much later in life, while working as a speech therapist in Kyneton about six years ago Jim noticed a man building a “beautiful dry stone retaining wall”.

This observation would lead to him furthering his own dry stone walling skills by working alongside Evan Pierce, a renowned dry stone wall builder with Kyneton Dry Stone Walling.

“Every day was a master class with Evan,” says Jim who recently launched out independently as a part-time dry stone waller.

“I’ve been doing it for a long time but up until the last few years years I didn’t think I’d ever get paid to do it,” says Jim who’s also travelled to northern Italy and furthered his dry stone walling skills there as well.

For the current project Jim has been joined by brother Vince who has an equally surprising professional background for a dry stone waller – voice acting.

Many will have caught the television series Kitty Is Not A Cat for which Vince provided various cartoon cat voices, among his myriad other projects in the arts sector.

Currently taking a break from city life Vince is clearly enjoying working as a part-time dry stone waller as well.

“At the moment I’m enjoying a different pace of life and taking on new skills,” Vince says.

Jim says the stretch of wall that they’re working on at Elevated Plains continues the restoration of the wall started several years ago by accomplished dry stone waller, Josh Bowes.

“Dry stone walls are amazing,” Jim says.

“They provide a microclimate for lizards, birds, even bats. There is no mortar. They’re free-draining and, as a retaining wall, if they’re built property, they’re the best.”

 To restore the historic wall on the Elevated Plains property they’re sourcing the material – natural stone – from the site itself.

It’s physical work – pretty much a “full-body work out” – but it’s also good for the mind as well says Jim who has now built walls in locations including Yandoit, Daylesford, Buninyong and Rockbank, with local councils increasingly keen to conserve their unique heritage value.

“The concepts are simple. There’s not a lot of technical things to remember,” he says.

“I love them. In a sense this is a building form that hasn’t changed in thousands of years.”

With a fair bit more of the current wall to be restored beyond the 30-or-so metres that they’ve been engaged to work on, Jim says that if the property owners are happy for them to keep going he’d jump at the chance to take on more of this age-honoured art form that he loves.

“It will teach you patience. It will teach you humility,” Jim says.

“I appreciate that it’s almost thrusting mindfulness upon you. You can’t really be worrying about other things when you are thinking about what you’re doing on the wall.”

Property owner Trefor John says there’s probably about a kilometre of walls on the block, “some very dilapidated and some almost intact”.

“We’d love to restore it all but, realistically, time and funds are the limiting factors,” Trefor says.

“We’ll do what we can with what we’ve got. A drystone wall is a thing of beauty. A dilapidated or damaged wall is a sad thing.” 

Jim says he could talk about the art of dry stone walling all day, and is often in luck on this front as quite a few appreciative and observant passers-by have stopped for a chat.

“I’d encourage anyone who sees us to come and say G’day,” he says.

Words: Eve Lamb

The Hepburn Pavilion and Kiosk, which has operated at the Hepburn Mineral Springs Reserve since 1908, is up for lease.

The request for proposal period will close at 5pm on Friday, May 31.

Renovation works are being planned which will include repairs to the historic octagonal Pavilion.

The Hepburn Pavilion and Kiosk lease is separate from the lease of the Hepburn Bathhouse & Spa Daylesford Mineral Spa, for which the Hepburn Shire Council leases operations to Belgravia Leisure.

Any new tenant for the pavilion and kiosk will be operating within the environs of the Reserve’s seven mineral springs, walking tracks and picnic facilities and adjacent to the Hepburn Bathhouse, which draws thousands of visitors each year. 

A culturally significant part of the shire, the operator’s plans and vision will be integral to the building’s revitalisation.  

Hepburn Shire Mayor, Cr Brian Hood, said the council is excited by the opportunity to develop a partnership with a café operator.  

“Council is undertaking a public Request for Proposal process seeking a tenant for the café at Hepburn Mineral Springs Reserve. It is a significant business opportunity located in an attractive and popular drawcard to the shire,” he said.

“We are looking at a five-year lease with two five-year options to renew.”

World-wide, some truly remarkable things have come out of the global Covid pandemic and one of them is the meteoric rise to international success of a new part game developed by a Hepburn Springs couple during lockdown.

One aspect that makes the success of That Sound Game so remarkable is that the two women behind it, Nat Delaney-John and Cam Jasson have backgrounds that could hardly be any further from the games scene.

Cam is a construction sector project management consultant whose professional dedication saw her awarded the Property Council of Australia’s Future Leader of the Year Award ’23, while Nat, who dreamt up That Sound Game, is a taxidermist.

The two had been living in a Melbourne apartment getting on with their work. But when the pandemic struck, Nat’s life and livelihood was badly impacted and she was left struggling to find a reason to get out of bed in the morning.

“I was so used to feeling like my world was large,” Nat recalls the impact of the pandemic on her personal existence. “Because of taxidermy I was used to working with palaeontologists and digging up dinosaurs.”

“When Covid happened it really, really hurt my company. I felt the walls closing in.”

But as Victorians – and millions of others world-wide – cocooned in their houses and turned to things like food, wine and board games during enforced lockdown, Nat had an interesting realisation.

“I needed to feel like you could still have dreams. And the more I thought about it, the more I realised someone should have done this before us,” Nat says.

“It is so rare to see a big gap in an already established market.”

Locked-down Nat had noticed that while the world had no shortage of charades-based games, word games galore, and myriad vision-based evergreen board game favs, there seemed very little, if anything, based around the medium of sound.

A dream was borne with Nat and Cam pouring their time, energy and money into developing
an entertaining fun-filled, family-friendly game to fill that gap. The result is That Sound Game.

That Sound Game is a fast-paced, interactive and very noisy party game, with the goal to get your team to guess as many answers on the category card as they can in a minute. Players can use any combination of sounds and movements, but their hands must be behind their back.

On its release in February 2023, That Sound Game became a social media sensation, “going viral” on TikTok.

“Nat came up with the idea in 2021 at the start of the second lockdown,” Cam says.

“We worked on the game for the whole of the lockdown and it’s been in production for about two years.

“We launched the game at the start of February ‘23 and when we launched it went viral on TikTok. We sold out in the US in four hours and we sold out world-wide in four days.

“Within our first year of launching we sold 100,000 units.”

Nat says social media has been a big part of their success.

“Our total reach on social media now is 190 million views. That’s how many eyeballs have seen us,” she says.

That Sound Game has since gained distribution in the US and the UK with major international retailers like Barnes & Noble, Walmart Canada, and Waterstones and John Lewis in the UK stocking it, while their own website and a partnership with Amazon enables them to fulfil supply obligations for online sales globally.

“We can fulfil (online sales orders) pretty much anywhere in the world,” Nat says.

But getting to that stage was far from easy.

“I was working three jobs and Cam was working two jobs to make it happen,” says Nat who took on additional work at Reptile Encounters, teaching young adults with autism to become zoo keepers in order to raise an extra $50,000-$60,000 needed to get them over the line.

“Thank goodness it paid off,” she says.

It not only paid off but enabled them to purchase their own home in Hepburn Springs in December after an initial shift to Daylesford mid-2023 as the game was taking off.

“I think both of us have been motivated by the fact that we are supporting our families as well,” says Cam who is financially assisting family in South Africa.

As for Nat, she is providing support for her mother who is contending with terminal illness.

To cater for market demand, they have further developed That Sound Game by creating some add-on x-tension packs including a ribald adults only pack, and another one aimed at more junior players in development, while the main game itself (that retails for $49) is family– friendly and suited for players young and mature alike.

The game has now been translated into Italian, French, Portuguese, Spanish and German, and as The Local caught up with Nat and Cam at their home in Hepburn Springs in very recent days, pre-sales were poised to go live in each of those countries.

As if that weren’t sufficient success, That Sound Game has just taken out Game of The Year at the Australian Toy Association Awards, and is also a finalist in the running to win Gift of The Year in the UK with Nat flying to London to attend a gala awards event and find out if they’ve scooped it.

Ellen DeGenre’s (online subscription) Game Night got in touch last year and as a result, That Sound Game is set to feature on that platform mid-year in what represents a fairly invaluable promotional opportunity.

It’s a heady take-off from November 2022 when, Nat laughs recalling, “we started selling to family and friends as sheer harassment to buy the thing we’d been working on.”

Nat and Cam now represent one of the very few entirely female-owned board game enterprises in the world.

“It’s amazing. Life-changing,” Nat says when asked what the journey has been like so far.

“We thought we had a million dollar idea, but to actually become a million dollar idea… These things don’t happen by chance. We were working up to 20 hours a day and now it’s probably down to 16 hours a day.”

Asked whether there’s any advice she could give aspiring entrepreneurs, Cam draws on her sporting background and says: “I was always taught to be the hardest worker in the room. I feel lucky it’s paid off. You have to visualise that the thing has happened or is going to happen. You have to win that battle in your head first.”

And then she adds: “I’d say invest in yourself as well. Take a gamble on yourself.”

Words: Eve Lamb

The cost of living is cutting into demand for property locally and further afield, the latest real estate trends indicate.

“There are a very high number of properties on the market with properties taking between four to six months to sell,” Belle Property Director Will Walton says.

“After COVID there were five buyers for every property. Now it’s the reverse.”

CoreLogic’s national Home Value Index shows that nationally property prices continue to rise, but that prices in regional Victoria have gone against the trend and declined by 0.3 per cent in the first quarter of 2024.

According to Mr Walton, properties that are realistically priced are still selling locally and there are signs of renewed interest heading towards May. Locally about half of houses are now selling above $890,000 and half below, local real estate agents report.

Renovated three bedroom, two bathroom properties on a good size block go for between $1.2 and $1.5 million.

Most economic commentators expect interest rates to remain stable during 2024 and it’s forecast that inflation will slowly decline to below three per cent heading into 2025.

In the medium term it is expected that average mortgage interest rates will fall to between five and six per cent.

Nationally, the shortage of housing remains the major reason for high property prices and rents.

The impact on local property prices is expected to be influenced by factors, including the supply of properties, the trend toward flexible work, government regulations on short term accommodation and tax policies.

And while times are tougher at the moment, Daylesford and Hepburn Springs remain attractive destinations for visitors and residents and it is likely that demand will continue to be robust over the medium term.

Luoda is their original music to Victoria’s beautiful Spa Country for the first time, playing songs from their debut album “Running Out of Time” as well as some new music to be recorded this year.

They play the Palias, Hepburn Springs on Saturday evening, April 20.

In addition to some of the country’s finest session musicians, they’ll be unveiling their newest addition – renowned Australian singer, Nina Ferro.

Original vocal-driven soul-rock from Melbourne, the members of Luoda bring extraordinary experience and sophisticated musicality to their songs.

Having pledged a lifelong commitment to refining their craft, members have written, recorded and performed in a staggering array of styles and contexts, spanning Avant-Garde Jazz to Acoustic Folk-Pop to Heavy Metal to Symphonic Orchestral music, to audiences all over the world in jazz clubs, theatres, stadiums, and through television sets.

Luoda’s music marries pop, jazz and rock sensitivities with complex chord progressions, intricate vocal harmonies and stylistic diversity.

The band’s debut album “Running Out of Time” is a powerhouse infusion of pop-rock, RnB and jazz-influenced music.

Rolling Stone Magazine once described Kevin Welch as “One of the best songwriters in America”.

Welch has written songs for Roger Miller, Waylon Jennings, The Highwaymen, Solomon Burke and Linda Ronstadt and he is headed to Hepburn Springs to play the Palais this month together with The Weeping Willows.

Three-times Country Music Assocation of Australia ‘Golden Guitar’ winners and two-times Australian Folk Music and Music Victoria Award winners, The Weeping Willows (Laura Coates and Andrew Wrigglesworth) are a couple of old souls, steeped in Bluegrass tradition and draped in Gothic Americana imagery.

They regale their audiences with stories of sunshine and romance, God and the devil, murder and decay.

Together again, Kevin Welch and The Weeping Willows return to the Palais-Hepburn, performing a set each before joining forces for some fairly special collaborations on Friday evening April 19.

Words & Images: Eve Lamb

Wildcat Gully and taking the waters

The Jackson’s Lookout walk taking in Wyuna, Argyle and Golden Springs is a great option for going just that little bushland bit beyond the more heavily traversed tourist saunters out of Hepburn Springs Reserve – even if you’re strapped for time.

The way we did it was anti-clockwise starting out in that time-honoured place of much frequented classic charm that is the Hepburn Mineral Springs Reserve grounds. Lunch first.

Admired a squeaky flock of black cockies, and myriad little blue wrens bobbing about, above. Checked the map, then set off on this breezy little 6km trek heading first to Wyuna Spring where my trusty walking companion, Paddy H, took the waters.

“Very fizzy. Reminds me of bicarbonate of soda,” he surmised.

Anyway onwards, following the Argyle Creek, breathing in the bushland beauty redolent of so many happy wanderings over so many sunny Sundays, and exchanging various far-fetched and fanciful accounts of BBC (Big Black Cat) sightings across the wider region.

These were inspired by the evocatively named Wild Cat Gully that we would soon traverse.

But first we headed directly on to Argyle Spring where Paddy, more extrovert than I, struck up
a conversation with a couple sitting beside the spring, who shared that they were visiting from
“Brizzy” and had to catch a flight back later that day and be back at work tomorrow.

Feeling their pain, we munched on a bit of dark chocolate and then set off again, retracing our steps for a short way until we reached a sharp V-shaped (roughly 45 degree) diversion off to the right (as you’re heading back in the direction of the Hepburn Springs Reserve picnic grounds).

This is the path that leads onwards and gradually upwards, and traverses the Wild Cat Gully on the way to Jackson’s Lookout. Our destination.

Jackson’s Lookout

“Hepburn and Daylesford are still very much locales for romantic weekend escapades,”
Paddy H observed, reflecting on the various happy and less happy twosomes we’d passed
along the way to this point, some delightfully preoccupied with each other’s company, others
not quite hiding the fact that they were mid-tiff.

But from here our couple sightings petered out … at least for a while. In fact the beauty of this handy walk is the fact that just for a brief while the time-strapped walker does leave behind the tourist trails more trodden to obtain a more lingering and much less populated taste of the lovely sclerophyll forest.

The path ahead rises gently as it climbs to the lookout which opens up a good view to Mount Kooroocheang to the north. Here we whisked out the thermos while admiring two wedge tailed eagles gliding smugly in widening leisurely arcs across the wide blue above.

Then Paddy nudged me and pointed to where a couple, oblivious to our silent presence, had momentarily stopped their own walk to engage in a furtive snog in the forest. Ah true love. Ah
Hepburn.

So then it was time to sample the view from the tower atop Jackson’s Lookout. Jackson’s Lookout, so our research informs, was designed in the 1940s and restored in 2017. The tower provides excellent views of Hepburn Regional Park.

“Don’t say wobbly,” said Paddy H who by this time had obtained the top viewing platform while I stood below, staring up and taking a few snaps.

The tower offers a fairly fine view across to the Wombat Hill Botanic Gardens in Daylesford, and while we took it all in there was an accompanying soundtrack of currawong cries. From here we followed the well-marked trail towards Golden Spring, joining a section of The Great Dividing Trail in the process.

Sulphur and holiday homes

The trail passes through a little grove of whispering pines just before reaching Golden Spring, and when we reached the spring, Paddy gave it a whirl too.

“Smells pretty sulphuric,” he observed, astutely. But it didn’t stop him sampling.

“This one tastes quite fresh and clean. It hasn’t got a deeply sulphuric flavour,” he concluded. I gave it a miss having had a prior bad experience – in another location entirely – on the sulphuric front.

We stayed and soaked in the atmosphere, spring-side, for a while or three before retracing the path back and up fairly sharply to where it meets the first old weatherboards of Hepburn Springs weekender land, then followed the sealed road back to our starting point.

“There should be an acronym for these – RUHH – Rarely Used Holiday Homes,” muttered my walking companion politically as we concluded this very pleasant little walking adventure that could just as well be done in reverse.

Much later that night I remembered the “Brizzy” couple at Argyle Springs and, again, felt their pain as I recalled her asking plaintively: “can you suggest any other good walks here?