Rob and Margaret McDonald recently held their 20th community picking day at their winery at Sailors Falls.  

Rob said the day started in 2005 with a few people from the Daylesford Walking  Group.

“It takes a few years for grapes to get going and we didn’t have that many in the early days. We planted in 1999 and our first crop was picked in 2005.  

“Some of the walkers, for some reason, got wildly excited about picking grapes so we had them around, had hot cross buns for morning team, a barbeque for lunch and then a few drinks at the end of the day.

“One year we had 25 people here. It just  grew and grew – still with mostly walkers, but also a few odds and bods who wanted to join the frivolities.”  

Rob said the free labour, albeit with all the perks, was a great help.

“If you had to bring in pickers it does cost a bit. And I have taken on a new role, I’m in my 81st year, so I hire a guy who does the lifting and pushing, and I do the cooking and catering. Everyone enjoys the day and I give them all a bottle of wine from a real family winery to take home. It combines work with fun.”  

Rob said while some of the earlier pickers were no longer around, there had  been a changing of the guard, with many people from U3A now helping out.  

“We do a few free wine tastings for U3A and they often ask if they can come along when we do the picking day. It’s a reciprocal thing.”  

Rob said the wine business was hard work, especially for local wineries unable to match the economies of scale of the bigger businesses.  

“We need to sell a bottle for about $20 but you can see wine for $5 and if that’s someone’s budget, it’s just what they have to buy. Cellarbrations does a good job for us with sales and a couple of businesses like Sault support us but it is hard going.  

“Any idiot can grow a grape, it’s the marketing and sales.”  

Rob said he and Margaret started Sailors Falls Estate, which offers meals and accommodation along with wine, as a “romantic notion”.

“I was never a big beer drinker and when I lived in Fitzroy I found everyone had wine in their sheds, they were making it themselves, and cooking pizzas in outside  ovens. I thought that was a great idea – to do when we retired.”  

Words: Donna Kelly | Images: Contributed    

With Eve Lamb

Just at home riding a Harley motorcycle through the desert as he is mingling in a classy art gallery, Sailors Falls creative, Michael Lelliott works with paint, drawing, photography, film, sculpture and sound to celebrate beauty where he finds it. Currently, inspired by a very recent desert excursion, he is working on a suite of new paintings to exhibit as part of this August’s winter fundraising show at The Little Gallery in Trentham,  where he will be among participating artists.

Eve: Michael I hear that you are currently preparing for a rather special show at The Little Gallery in Trentham, the gallery’s annual winter fundraising show. What do you have in mind for that?

Michael: Phillip Edwards,  who has the Bullarto Gallery, and I are just back from a trip to the desert, the Mungo National Park, camping in swags, and I am doing on a body of work coming out of that trip for The Little Gallery show.

I am also planning to enter a work (coming out of this trip) in the Pro Hart Outback Art Prize.

Eve: A camping trip to the desert. Sounds like fun. Can you tell me a bit more about about it?

Michael: What I love about getting into that space, that landscape, is that the more you sit and wait, the more that’s revealed. You start to see the shift in colour and the shift in time, and the Mungo is on this amazing dune that’s constantly being pushed back revealing layers going back in time.

We had a little walking tour there with an Indigenous guide. And while we were there we also started painting under moonlight which was a really interesting experience.

Eve: What sort of media are you working with as you prepare work for the upcoming winter show at The Little Gallery?

Michael: Watercolour, pencil and gauche on paper. I often work at night. You can get a lot done at night, play dance music and have a glass of wine while you work. The work I am doing is very physical. I put a lot of movement into the work. I’m not a traditional watercolourist.

Eve: What is your background?

Michael: My background is in product design, consumer products. I still do a bit of brand work but I am now becoming a full-time artist.

I studied art at the Victorian College of the Arts in the late 80s, early 90s, print making and photography and I had an arts practice for 30 years, lived in Fitzroy, Europe, Germany for a while. I was pretty focussed on brands, product design but I decided to refocus at the end of ’22, start of ’23.

Last year I spent the first six months just discovering mark-making again. We went to the desert. Mutawintji and Bimbowrie. I think ‘space’ is the right word. The landscape gives you permission to be present.

Eve: Are you inspired by any particular artists?

Michael: So many. Right now I’m thinking of Fred Williams, also of Russell Drysdale in terms of landscape. Those sort of 40s, 50s, 60s Australian artists.

Eve: I know that you are truly a multi-media artist, who is even known to dance, but what genre are you working with currently?

Michael: Still life and landscape. With still life and landscape I can get out of my own way. With photography though, I do focus on people. And I tend to shoot without setting it up.  

Eve: Anything else coming up on your artistic radar, Michael?

Michael: Yes. A group show at the Bullarto Gallery with Phillip Edwards and one or two other artists in November.

I’m heading to the States (USA) in July and we – a group of friends, actors, artists, sculptors and I – are riding our Harleys from LA to New York, starting our trip by going across Death Valley.

We’re going to follow The Rockies so I’m expecting there’ll be other work coming out of that for the Bullarto show. Australia is my heart-space. But it will be interesting to see how the desert there is different.

I am also going through a series of photos I did between 2010 and 2014 for a book. It’s particularly about motorcycle subculture.

Words: Donna Kelly | Image: Contributed

A bushwalker in his 30s was rescued after falling down a mineshaft near Sailors Falls on Sunday
morning, April 2.
Leonards Hill Fire Brigade captain Marc Dankers, who was the incident controller, said he received a call at
11.41am about the incident off Telegraph Road.

“It was a confined space rescue, a mineshaft, so that activated a specialist mining unit which was the CFA’s
Oscar 1 unit, located in Bendigo and Castlemaine.
“We also had Fire Rescue Victoria’s Hazmat 68 from Lucas in Ballarat, and a FRV pumper from Ballarat City
because of the possibility of toxic gases.”
Support also came from Daylesford CFA, FRV’sDistrict Operations, Ballan Group FCV, Birch Group
FCV, Ambulance Victoria and Victoria Police.
Captain Dankers said the man and a woman, in their 30s, had been bushwalking in the area with their dogswhen the man “misstepped” and fell into the mineshaft.
The woman called triple zero.
“The mineshaft turned out to be reasonably small,with a narrow shaft and only about two metres deep. So that was very lucky,” Captain Dankers said.
“The man just misstepped – there are heaps of mineshafts around that area – and
despite a dislocated shoulder, was eventually able to climb out with assistance using a
ladder. Everyone worked really well as a team to get that good result.
“It’s the first mineshaft rescue I have been involved in but you hear about
them from other areas, they do happen, but often people can get themselves out of
trouble.”
Captain Dankers said the rescue took a couple of hours and as they were
debriefing, a call came from Ambulance Victoria that a man had fallen off his horse in
Blampied. He had broken his femur, the thigh bone, and was in a lot of pain.
“He needed assistance so it turned out to be quite the afternoon – and I want to
thank everyone involved.”
Captain Dankers said being a CFA volunteer meant you could be called to any
kind of incident “from car accidents and traffic incidents to fires and bush rescues”.
“It really is very diverse but that makes it interesting as well.”