with Eve Lamb

Clunes Original Homestead Creekside Walk.  Loop. Distance 4.5 km.

This is one of my fav Clunes walks. It’s a slight adaptation of a loop walk that appears in a newly released brochure detailing several choice walks and saunters in and around the Clunes township. More on that later.

For this 4.5km loop my trekking accomplice Paddy H and I start out in Collins Place (adjacent to The Clunes Warehouse). We turn left and head roughly north along the town’s main (Fraser) street, until we reach Templeton Street where we turn right (east) and walk straight toward the Creswick Creek.

Once we reach the creek we turn left and make our way toward the timber-decked footbridge, less than 100 metres on, that takes us over the creek.

After crossing the footbridge we turn left and follow the creekside walking path roughly due north for a short way before turning left into the bottom of Scenic Drive to cross over the creek ford.

Once across the ford we turn right and head roughly north alongside Blackmores Road, again following the creek to take in the Blackmores Road Park. With its magnificent old National Trust significant elm trees, established gums and old fashioned picnic tables this little creekside park is surely one of the most underrated around. It is the perfect place for a picnic or barbecue.

Paddy H and I opt for a coffee break and then walk on to the end of the Blackmores Road Park. Here, we make our way up onto Blackmores Road and continue heading north-ish along the road parallel to the creek that’s to our right.

After about half a kilometer, in a paddock to our right we see the weather-beaten sign that IDs the site of the town’s original homestead.

Scottish-born Donald Cameron, the original squatter, built his homestead in 1839. The Clunes Museum has a painting of the Cameron Homestead and the State Library of Victoria has a watercolour of the Station of Donald Cameron JP Esq done around 1844-1847 and available to view on Trove.

We continue on along Blackmores Road for another couple of hundred metres or so until just past the 40km advisory sign where Blackmores Road ends and sweeps up into Alfred Road. We instead turn right, taking a very short unmade track that leads down to a small steel footbridge to cross the creek.

I should mention here that we’ve seen quite a bit of wildlife at this point including a black kite, a black-shouldered kite, a family of grey fantails, and  I strongly suggest that when doing this walk in the warmer months you keep a watchful look out for snakes when moving alongside the creek.

Anyway, back to the bridge. It’s a great little lesser known reach of the creek here, meditative just to stand and take in the scene. Once across and on the other side of the creek, if you haven’t already tuned in properly, the landscape now commands attention with its undulations and sweeping wide sky vistas.

The track weaves through an impressive patch of native poa tussock grass, heading roughly due east before we turn right into Station Flat Road,  and begin heading along the creek back toward the township.

Clunes is a unique place (as you know) and one of the evocative things about it is the quirky Eternity sign to be spotted as you meander along Cattle Station Flat Road. There it is, painted in a kind of faded lemon yellow in a flowing yesteryear cursive script and afixed to a rusty gate that leads to … well eternity really.

I love this walk, too, for the landscape right here with its remnant mining mullock heaps plus palm tree. Makes you feel like you might be in Egypt or somewhere else fairly exotic… which of course, you are.

We continue along Station Flat Road, passing historic relics of the Port Phillip Gold Mine, until we again reconnect with the bottom of Scenic Drive. To neatly complete this walk you could either cross the ford again and  turn left to take in the far end of Fraser Street headed back to Collins Place. Or you could just keep ambling along creekside for a beautiful leafy end to the loop, back across the first footbridge.

This walk is very similar to the ‘Original Homestead Walk’ included in the new Clunes Town Walks brochure that was produced as a collaboration between Clunes Neighbourhood House, Creative Clunes and the Clunes Tourism and Development Association.

The new brochure details four good local ambles ranging from 1.5 km to 4.5km in length: the Clunes Creek Walk , Eighteen Miners Steps Walk, Gold Mines Walk and the Original Homestead Walk. It comes complete with historic insights, a handy map and QR codes giving extra info for each walk.

Clunes Neighbourhood House manager Lana de Kort says the Clunes Town Walks brochures can be picked up free of charge at various retail outlets throughout the town, and other outlets like the Neighbourhood House.

Words & Images: Eve Lamb

The experience of community members being talked over at an ageing conference was the spark that inspired the theme of a new short film shot in Clunes.

That film, Giving Voice to Ageing Well in a Small Community, has now gone on to become one of three made to help tell the story of a groundbreaking collaboration between Central Highlands Rural Health, Clunes Neighbourhood House and members of Attitude.

The contemporary Clunes-based alternative to the senior citizens of yesteryear, Attitude is a community-led initiative providing ongoing social, cultural, creative and physical activities for retirees and folk aged 55 plus, with all ages welcome.

The 12-month collaboration between Attitude, CHRH and Clunes Neighbourhood House has trialled a new approach to improving older folk’s physical and psychological well-being.

Findings were the focus of a special event held before a packed house in Clunes last Thursday, July 11, at Attitude in the town’s Fraser Street.

“When Attitude members got up to speak at an ageing expo at the very start of this project they were ignored and talked over by people working in the ageing industry,” said award-winning documentary filmmaker Dr Catherine Gough-Brady.

“So, I said let’s channel your anger about your experience of ageism into a short film where you get to express your thoughts,” Dr Gough-Brady said, describing how the new short film came into being.

Dr Gough-Brady, who has produced several ABC radio and TV documentaries, including The Communicator (2022), was approached by the Attitude members to film the story of the hub’s evolution in Clunes as a resource that shares real knowledge and practical insights for other communities.

“The script for the film is made up of lines from interviews with people from Attitude,” she said.

“Elders from Clunes chose a line they would like to deliver to the camera. Even though everyone is performing their lines, they are authentic experiences that are deeply felt. And it shows.”

Composer of the original music for the film, Elizabeth Drake, said the small film of just two minutes has some big things to say. Ms Drake’s other film credits include musical scores for Road to Nhill and Japanese Story.

“I was collaborating on this project that was challenging the stereotypes of ageing, but I was doing it from my studio in Melbourne, and I just wanted to get in and meet everyone,” she said.

“It led to me thinking about the tropes in society that accumulate around a certain identity or position. I also explored the word Attitude, which is the name the community has given to the loose collective in which they work to run their activities and the building in which they meet.

“The word is linked to ‘truculent’ and ‘uncooperative,’ so I wove those feelings into the music. Seeing how the film has come together, it is representative of real experience, giving a voice to real people.

The accumulation of voices adds up to a powerful message.”The Giving Voice short film screened during last Thursday’s gathering of industry and community members, during which the three key partners in the collaboration discussed the findings of the year-long project.

“Forty-five percent of people in our region are over 55,” says CHRH deputy CEO Phil Catterson.

“And only 17 per cent of people will go online to My Aged Care to help access services.”

The project has highlighted the huge importance of maintaining ongoing relationships between different community groups, agencies and service providers, Clunes Neighbourhood House manager Lana de Kort said.

Tess Brady of the Attitude, Ageing Well in Clunes working party highlighted the importance that the project revealed also of “doing things with people rather than for people”.

“People want to feel welcome and supported, safe, valued and accepted,” Mr Catterson said. “A sense of purpose and belonging is so important.”

The event also featured a guest presentation from Dr Mike Rungie from the EveryAGE Counts coalition steering group whose discussion touched on the way leaving a working life behind can present major life challenges.

Adelaide-based Dr Rungie highlighted the importance for every individual of maintaining a valuable role, or several, in the community throughout life’s journey.

He suggested sampling multiple different community-based activities, and particularly volunteering as a valuable means to achieve this for those who have moved on from the conventional paid workforce.

Words: Eve Lamb

A significant number of secret lives have been uncovered in Clunes.

There was once a man, let’s call him Toddy, and he stumbled quite unawares into one of them.

It all happened one Saturday when Toddy, visiting Clunes from inner Melbourne sauntered into Boom Clunes, the main street community retail hub representing local makers and selling books new and pre-loved.

Inside the handsome double-storey 1800s building, Toddy had wandered past a diverse array of  handmade products created by local artisans, craftspeople and cooks, and took himself straight to the pre-loved books room. He wanted some good holiday reading.

Toddy selected a biography penned by a reputable writer and took it to the counter, delighted with his find and pleased to see that all of the pre-loved books cost only $5 each.

“A bargain,” he thought, as the biography he’d found on the life of a former notorious sporting personality was in top-shelf condition and, he knew, that if acquired brand new would have cost him that asking price many times over.

The friendly woman at the desk flipped the book over and told Toddy “Ah! That book has a secret life”.

“Sorry?” replied Toddy, unclear as to what she meant.

“Yes,” said the woman. “It has a secret  life which means it comes with this…”

She reached  beneath the counter, pulled out a cardboard box and from it extracted a neatly filed white envelope which she handed to Toddy. “That’s yours to keep,” she told him.

And that’s how Toddy ended up immensely enjoying a secret life.

He’d just discovered the Secret Lives of Books project happening at Clunes. It’s a unique project, where anyone who may be feeling writerly (and there are reputed to be quite a few in Clunes who regularly do) can volunteer to pen anywhere up to a page-long “secret life” for any of Boom’s pre-loved books that they choose.

When a customer then purchases a book that has had a secret life written for it (and is especially demarcated with an ‘S’ on its back cover as such), they receive not only the book but also it’s written secret life in an envelope to take away and delve into as well.

It’s a bit like getting a surprise gift, or participating in an exclusive book club where you get to receive a personal original response to the book in hand.

A creative initiative between Boom Clunes, the Clunes Neighbourhood House (that manages Boom) and the Western Victorian Primary Health Network, it all  started during Covid in 2021 and since then has produced all kinds of “secret lives” to go with numerous selected books.

“It’s taking the interaction with the book to another level,” says Lois Nichols, project manager at Boom Clunes. Lois is a keen amateur short story writer with a background in magazine publishing who has so far penned 15 secret lives for selected books through the project, and counting…

Locals feeling inclined to pen a secret life for one of Boom’s pre-loved books get to read the book themselves for free first, before handing it back along with the secret life they’ve written for it.

These secret lives range from imagined fantastical globe-trotting pasts people by characters whose hands and lives the book previously graced, to interesting factual aspects of its narrative teased-out for special focus, to genuine heartfelt personal responses to the book’s content.

“Everyone’s got a different take on it,” says Lois. “Some write about how they related to the book as they were reading it or, if they were struggling with something, how the book helped them.

“It’s a bit of fun. It gets people writing and encourages people to read and it’s a way of connecting people.”

 “We sell pre-loved books donated to us by local people and we have two book rescuers here, Rhonda and Patsy, one is a book lover and one is a professional librarian, and they clean, sort and beautifully file the books on the shelves so we have a fabulous range and just about every known genre.

“The idea was inspired by a book called The Secret Life of Dresses which is about a pre-loved dress shop owner who made up stories for her dresses.

“At the moment we have about 60 books in stock that have secret lives. The books with secret lives are marked with an ‘S’ on the back and each secret life is very different.

“The customers who pick up a secret life book are fascinated, thrilled, and want to know more. What started as a retail promotion has become a community activity.”

 The Secret Lives of Books project fits snugly with Clunes’ reputation as a Book Town.

“We get a lot of visitors here on weekends,” says Lois.

Clunes Neighbourhood House manager Lana de Kort says the Secret Lives project is reaching and appealing to a wider range of people than the usual suspects who put their hands up to get involved in community activities.

“It’s a project that really appeals to people who are perhaps a little more introspective and who wouldn’t necessarily connect or volunteer in other ways,” she says.

“A good book really captures your imagination and this project takes that further. It’s brought a lot of people together and it’s drawn people in from Clunes and surrounding areas as well.”

Many have heard that Clunes has an annual Book Town event and they expect to be able find and purchase books in the town. Open on weekends, Thursdays to Mondays, Boom Clunes is helping to meet that expectation, Lois says.

“We also have a really strong writers’ group in town and two book clubs which isn’t bad for a little town of this size,” says Lois, herself a member of the Clunes Book Club that meets at Attitude Clunes on the third Monday of the month at 7.30pm. Meanwhile, the Book Lovers book group meets at Boom once each month as well, she says.

With the project now set to continue throughout 2024 anyone interested in writing a secret life for any of the Boom books can simply roll up at the Boom Clunes counter in person to learn more, or can call the Neighbourhood House.

Words: Eve Lamb

Words and image Eve Lamb

The permanent relocation of Clunes Neighbourhood House to the town’s former Free Lending Library Building is poised to breathe new life into one of the town’s historically significant sites, invigorating the CBD as well.

For the previous 20 years or so Clunes’  historic former free lending library in Templeton Street, has sat largely unused, save for some assorted community meetings and a brief stint involving youth activity.

But plenty of groundwork by dedicated community volunteer committee of management members has paved the way for the beautiful old building’s reinvention – for essentially the very same use its founding mothers intended way back in 1852.

Stage one works inside the building, are now in full swing and are scheduled for completion in June, says Clunes Neighbourhood House manger, Lana de Kort.

When the new flooring and other internal works are done come the end of June the Neighbourhood House will then base itself there permanently, having previously been housed in the town’s Lee Medlyn Bottle Museum complex for the past 10 years or so.

In the meantime, while key works are under way, the Neighbourhood House HQ is temporarily working out of the town’s BOOM co-working space in Fraser Street.

Lana says the move to the former free lending library building has been informed every step of the way by what the community wants, guided by the ethos “focus on the Neighbourhood and the House can follow”.

“The Committee of Management and Department of Energy, Environment and Climate Action (DEECA) approached us to use the building at a time that was perfect for us,” she says.

“We’re still continuing to take responsibility for the Lee Medlyn space and we will work out how the community wants to use that into the future.

“Most of the works here (in the free lending library building) will be finished by the end of June, and that will enable us to get into the building. The current work is the first stage of a series of stages and we expect there will be four stages,” Lana says.

She says funding for this work was “just the latest in a series of smart decisions made by people protecting this building” and was secured by Graeme Johnstone, Phil Taig and Denise Fordham (the then committee for the building) through the Hugh D.T Williamson Foundation.

“The volunteers that went before us did engineering and structural reports and historical reports, and stabilising works so now we’re at the stage where we can preserve and restore.

“With these reports, as well as engineering reports completed over the last decade, we have been well placed to work with DEECA to begin the safety works to restore the entrance and meeting rooms.

“The volunteer committee stabilised the building and we had an event in February where people could look through the building and share their ideas for it.

“The real magic is that the ideas that the community has come forward with are essentially exactly the same ideas that brought the building into being in 1852,” Lana says.

“Back in 1852 a group of women from Clunes identified a need for a space where people could come together and read and learn together.

“They worked with the community to raise the funds for the building. They lobbied landowners and the mining industry to support the development of the building as a place to develop literacy skills.

“I think it started off as the mechanics institute but it was always a place of informal learning. It’s always been a space where the community can come together and grow and that’s what we intend it will continue to be as we go forward.

“It is a community space where people can connect, learn and gain support.”

The Clunes Neighbourhood House itself has existed for four decades, operating from various venues, and is a vital community hub delivering social connection activities including group exercise, training courses, general support including digital literacy, and help navigating things like applying for the state government’s power saving bonus.

“We also provide emergency relief support,” Lana says.

The newly reinvigorated former free lending library building will provide contemporary meeting, office, kitchen and training spaces, all set off beautifully by the historic high timber ceilings, fine old arched windows and stained glass.

Lana says staged work planned ahead will also include shower and laundry facilities that will be made available for use by those who need them through a partnership with Anglicare Victoria.

 There are also plans to accommodate the re-introduction of a regular children’s playgroup for the town.

“We are certainly looking at having a playgroup here, after the playgroup in Clunes ceased operating as of the middle of last year,” Lana says.

There are also plans to use one of the beautiful old high-ceilinged rooms within as a parlour to host music events among other activities.

“For us it means we have a permanent home,” Lana says.

“We will be operating from here three days a week from Tuesday to Thursday, and this location is much more visible and accessible to people.”

Lana notes that with CNH temporarily based in BOOM Clunes, that shopfront will be open until the June long-weekend, seven days a week from 10am – 3pm with staff available on Wednesday and Thursday to assist with the power saving bonus.

In the meantime concept boards are being used to highlight the different ways the community has imagined spaces might be used at Clunes Neighbourhood House once the Clunes Former Free Lending Library building is fully restored.

“All of the activities that the Neighbourhood House does in Clunes are community–led so people can continue to come forward with ideas.”