The Wastelands Cup, a chance to enjoy mutated cars, zooming around a sand quarry track, and nights of music and fun is over for another year.

Taking place on May 3-4 on private land somewhere in NSW, it attracted a small but enthusiastic array of people trying to win the coveted cup, awarded to the most outrageous team in dress, mechanical acumen and flamboyance.

This year, Space Mex, headed by Tony Whitehead of Wheatsheaf took the prize home.

“We have finally done it – thanks to our fantastic crew,” he said.

Space Mex will be caretakers of the Cup before passing it over to the future winners at next year’s event.

Words: Tony Sawrey | Images: Contributed

As always, for all manner of reasons, the shadow of the United States of  America looms over the culture of the world. That’s a big statement I know  and we can argue about it over dinner sometime.

Despite all predictions of its imminent demise, from our shitty social media feeds to the movies we critique, the online series we binge on, and the politics we follow, the idea  of America is omnipresent.

In a post-globalised world, within the 24-hour news cycle and the sodden floating morass of opinion and perspective that passes for actual information, you will find multiple aspects of the perplexing, infuriating, compelling, impenetrable, amorphous concept of America.  

No other country on earth filters through via so many lenses and I suppose that is why  everyone, whether they have been there or not, have so many strident opinions on the place and I have probably been the worst offender.

So that’s why I decided, worn out slaving for The Local, that my next journey would be to that country. I did not expect to traipse the  halls of power, feel its hot breath, nor oscillate around the world of the elite and famous. I  simply wanted to see the USA at ground level through my own lens and form an opinion  of this land via actual experience. I hope it’s worth reading. – Tony Sawrey  

“Come check out Gladheart Farm,” said Elle. “They are a cult, but they make a killer sourdough and I need to stock up my cafe.”  

I’m in Asheville, North Carolina visiting my niece, we have been spending  the day driving around and seeing the sights, which in this part of the world is  overwhelmingly the flood damage done to the city as a result of Hurricane Helene in  September 2024.  

But there has been enough written about that event, the focus is now on  rebuilding. I didn’t want to come away from this town as just another disaster tourist  and the idea of visiting a religious commune appeals to my persistent interest in weird  counter-cultures.  

Gladheart Farm sits on 19 acres (7.6 hectares) of land around eight kilometres  from the centre of Asheville and is part of the Twelve Tribes, “an emerging spiritual  nation…a confederation made up of self-governing communities…who live together  in homes and on farms”.

On their website they describe themselves as “disciples of  the Son of God, whom (they) call by His Hebrew name Yahshua”.  

Founded by Elbert Eugene Spriggs out of Tennessee in 1972, today the group  consists of 32 communities worldwide including the United States, Europe and even a house and deli in Katoomba, NSW.  

We arrived at their farm at lunchtime and had the opportunity to sit down with some of the members. We entered through the kitchen where at least a dozen women of various ages were busy preparing the midday meal consisting of salad, cheesy chicken and kale/banana smoothies.  

Each woman was dressed in either full length dresses or sus pants (a type of shapeless trouser with narrow ankle sleeves) and long hair kept in pigtails, often covered by scarves.  

While they served us lunch, I sat and chatted with some of the men who all  sported beards, and tied back hair. Ben, a former dairy farmer and ex-military who  has been part of the group for two years, was happy to chat about Gladheart.  

“We have several houses for families living here and communal lodging for the single men. This building serves as a meeting area for celebrations, gospel readings  and our weekly pizza and film nights.”  

The Twelve Tribes seeks to recreate the first-century Christian church, a period  after the death of Jesus made up of men and women who knew Jesus personally and/ or witnessed his resurrection.  

Their belief structure is a combination of Christian fundamentalism (also known as Bible Literalism) and Messianic Judaism including the concept of salvation by believing in Jesus or ‘Yahshua’ in Hebrew, the language of early Christendom.  

Furthermore, the group gives each member a Hebrew name that is meant to reflect the personality of the individual.  In more recent years, the use of Hebrew names, often interchangeable between members, has also made it very difficult for outsiders trying to track down family members within scattered Twelve Tribes communities.  

Its commune-based all-things-in-common lifestyle can come across as quaint and bucolic, a throwback to the flower-power age of the 1960s, but the group is nothing  if not industrious, with its various chapters engaged in all forms of businesses from  bakeries and delis to construction and printing.  

“Here, along with our organic produce we have Maté Factor,” explains Ben. “A  facility producing herbal tea blends based on the yerba maté plant imported from  Brazil and sold around the world.”  

Community members young and old work unpaid in these businesses with all  profits going towards sustaining the Twelve Tribes community.

Walking around Gladheart Farm, it is very easy to be seduced by what is on offer  here. To think that in exchange for honest work, growing crops, tending animals and  tilling the land, you can be part of a loving family, something greater than yourself.  No need to worry about money, all your needs taken care of.  

Cult, commune, movement or sect, my niece Elle, with her frequent visits to the community, can best sum up this desire to belong as a natural response to corruption and uncertain times.  

“When individuals no longer trust the government and when they feel powerless  and afraid of what the future holds, groups like the Twelve Tribes are always going to  hold some sort of appeal.”  

Images: Tony Sawrey     

The Local’s Tony Sawrey recently enjoyed a leisurely and lavender-hazed afternoon-evening capturing a bit of the atmosphere of Lavandaze, always a favourite part of the ChillOut Festival program.

Held at beautiful Lavandula at Daylesford, Lavandaze is an ever-growing gathering of all the tribes of our rainbow to take part in a ritual of dance and love.

It delivered a journey from a hot and sunny day into night with the transformation of the beautiful historical property into a wonderland of technicolor to enhance an evening of excitement and adventure.

Held on Sunday March 9 Lavandaze was, as ever, a very popular inclusion on the ChillOut Festival wider program and Tony was kind enough to share some of his happy snaps…

Images: Tony Sawrey

The Local journalist and delivery driver Tony Sawrey  

Empty roads. Diary of a delivery driver in the times of Covid.  I like driving open roads. I find the activity good for thought. And when the  plague came in 2020 I had plenty of time to enjoy those empty expanses of bitumen.  

When you work for a regional newspaper, the fences separating different roles tend to fall over. When I started at The Local several years before, I was pecking out stories, maybe doing a little photography when needed and eventually I started sharing delivery duties.

Soon it became a regular gig, was better than loading Christmas trees and was a nice opportunity to tour the shire.  

Anyway, I was doing the fortnightly pick-up and deliveries when everything went unusual. Not that much changed in my area of the forest though. Things were  actually quite idyllic, what with the drop in traffic volumes and a total absence of anyone in the bush. Happy days.  

But gradually The Local turned into a vital means of public communication,  especially since many of the other regional newspapers decided to quit or move online.

And suddenly I had become an essential worker and was working harder than I had ever cared to before or since. The mag had gone weekly, I had to produce more  stories and of course the delivery work doubled.  

Out on the freeway heading off to pick up our consignment from the (now  closed) print plant in Ballarat the only vehicles on the road were trucks travelling in  convoy and me. No impatient BMW M3 drivers, lumbering caravans or commuting  tradies bunching up and weaving about.

It was a form of bliss especially to someone like me who likes to drive. It was like the 1970s all over again, me a kid in the back seat staring at the empty tarmac ahead while counting the passing big rigs.  

Every week I would go out, an essential worker as I was, distributing important material for the good of the community. What an unusual position to be in.

From  Daylesford to Trentham, from Clunes to Creswick I would drive, dropping off  bundles at empty supermarkets and general stores. Everything else was shut. No cafés, no tourist info centres, no hotels or eateries.  

And you know what? People were actually glad to see me. How is that?

I shifted from a ghost with a hand trolley, a nothing people stepped around getting their morning coffee to a form of good news walking.  

“Good morning. Is that the paper?” a bemasked elderly person would say. “It is so  nice to have a paper to read.”  

“It is great you are still delivering,” says another. “That other mob gave up.”  

These were typical responses. In times when nothing was particularly normal, all  people could do was wait for things to get better.

The regular appearance of a bundle of nice fresh crinkly Locals in the supermarket basket became more than just a paper.  The Local became almost like.. like a beacon of light, a hope for better days ahead and I, the delivery guy was the messenger.

Above, Tony Sawrey and Logic 

Helen Hayes has always been a keen gardener but a busy corporate career kept her from creating something on the scale befitting her imagination. 

But with retirement came the opportunity to realise her dreams in the rich volcanic soil of the Central Highlands. And recently the fruits of her labours at Musk Manor has captured the attention of other gardening enthusiasts.

Just recently she had a film crew spend 10 hours at her property gathering footage for an appearance on a future episode of the ABC’s ‘Gardening Australia’. 

“I’d expect that I would have been a very unlikely candidate to be a gardener earlier on in my life,” says Helen.

“I worked 12 hour days pretty much seven days a week and I would have had to get up at 5am before I went off to work at 7 to get anything done.” 

Before relocating to Musk and starting on her garden Helen was an internationally recognised leader in business development and information management. She successfully coached and mentored senior executives for many years and was highly regarded as a trusted advisor and executive coach.

In 1999 Helen was recognised as the Victorian and Australian Telstra Business Woman of the Year and later worked at the executive level in universities in Australia and Scotland. That left very little time for creating a garden. 

But in 2017 Helen and her partner Michael came to the area to have a look at an old farm house in Musk. It sat on just over a hectare of land with a wonderful view north over the Wombat Forest and she sensed the potential to create a spectacular garden. 

“I saw the land and the 100-year-old barn and thought, ‘this is definitely it, I’ve got to move in here, I’ve got to make my garden here, I thought this will give me a reason to retire, I’ll have a project. It will be a big project but I’ll still do it’.” 

And now, seven years later the transformation of the site has been spectacular. At first there was very little when they moved in. Just an empty paddock save for a couple of established trees. Helen began with the preparation that needed to be done. 

She divided the area into 13 different sections and tackled one at a time until it was done. That task alone took six to eight months and filled 14 skips with weeds before anything was planted at all. 

Today, the place is a wonderful collage of trees and scrubs, evergreens and perennials. Gravel paths wend between beds of flowers of all sizes and colours and sumptuous lawns have replaced the dusty fields of 2017. 

Birds dart in and around a gorgeous array of native and non-native plants and bees and butterflies feast on nectar. Helen describes how she approached the arrangement. 

“The plants have been chosen for their attraction to bees, birds and butterflies.” Helen says. “Each area has a predominant colour. The two gardens on the fence line are mainly yellow so I have leucadendrons but also forsythia, buddleia, grevillea and hypericum in the yellow garden. 

“In the orange garden I have a long-flowering rise called ashram. I have mixed orange with deep purple plants. The plants that thrive in the garden are daphne, rhododendrons and camellias – mostly Bob Hope and black tie as I like the red against the dark green foliage. 

“I have added two hedges of plantation pink sasanqua camellias. My favourite trees are maples for their colour, particularly Autumn Moon. Autumn is my favourite time and the oaks, crab apples and red-stemmed maples are favourites. I have a special favourite that is a Himalayan strawberry tree. 

“Of the small plants, I love daylilies at this time of year and peonies although they are short lived. I have a lot of irises, especially midnight blue. Miniature irises border the yellow garden and a purple and blue mix border the main garden.” 

Like all labours of love, the work is never completed, it just evolves and Helen continues to work on developing her little patch of paradise and is looking forward to having another open garden day.

“I have had it open twice so far for fundraising events, once for the Musk CFA and then for the Spa Country Railway,” Helen says.

“I will do it again for the CFA next year. I like people to be able to come and walk around and enjoy what’s been created here.”

Words & main image: Tony Sawrey

Over the past decade there has been an average of 8000 Miner’s Right licences sold in Victoria each year.  

This licence, obtained from Resources Victoria costs $28 and allows you to remove and keep minerals discovered on Crown Land or private (with permission).  

Many of those licence holders are going out looking  for gold armed with sophisticated metal detectors worth  up to $9000, picking over old diggings such as those  across the Hepburn Shire.  

It is a highly popular pastime no doubt but local  detectorist Glenn Conroy remembers the days when he  was one of only a handful of prospectors in the Wombat Forest combing over mining sites virtually untouched  since they were abandoned a century before.  

“I used to go digging around old houses and huts  looking for bottles,” says Glenn, “and when the metal detectors started to be advertised in some of the bottle  magazines I got interested and bought one.  

“I started detecting in the remains of stone huts  from the gold rush era between Musk Vale and Eganstown.”  

Glenn was keen on chasing gold and was already  familiar with dishing and using sluice boxes, common  methods of alluvial (surface) prospectors in the 1800s.  

He began talking to a few local blokes who were  starting to do gold detecting who said the best way to cut your teeth was to go into those areas that had  already been worked.  

“So I went again and within minutes the very first  bit of gold I found was 2 3/4 ounces (85g). That got me  going. I got my picture in papers and since then I had a variety of detectors over the years and I’d say since then  I’ve probably found about 220 ounces (6.2 kilos).”  

Glenn has worked his whole life as a harness racing  trainer and driver, starting with his parents Bob and Pat and continuing today in partnership with his sister Anne-Maree.  

In his early 20s detecting was a casual thing, something to do on a Saturday afternoon after work. But a few short years later he was married with two daughters and gradually his hobby became a means to support his growing family.

“We were not particularly well off and so my wife Tracy would often say to me, there is ‘x’ amount of bills on the fridge, go and see what you can do.  

“I used to like the fact that not only was I enjoying myself when I was detecting out in the bush but I was helping the family along. We were paying off our house as well as braces for my youngest daughter’s teeth when  she was a teenager. It was a great way to earn money and have fun at the same time.”  

In the late 1970s when Glenn began his gold fossicking career, the many mining sites around the  area

had hardly been touched since being abandoned a  century before. Besides gold, he has dug up all sorts of historical relics from English and Chinese coins, trade tokens (issued by local stores) to opium tins, digging tools, buttons and belt buckles.

While he gave some to friends and family, he still has quite a collection of objects that  stand as a testament to his time spent in the bush; a combination of perseverance, luck and knowledge.

“I’ve seen a lot of blokes start and chuck it in and  it would have been easy for me to do the same at the  start. I wasn’t an instant success by any means and when  I look back now I realise how little I knew about where the gold was and where it was likely to be found.  

“But through trial and error, research and a keen  interest in what other blokes were telling me you realise how it works. It’s like a magic trick.”  

About five years ago his daughter Lyndal started an Instagram page for him. She would take photos of things Glenn found and post them.

Then he teamed up with fellow detectorist Anthony Meryvale filming their prospecting adventures on a phone. This became  a popular YouTube channel and today Victorian Gold  Hunters has garnered more than a million views and 7000 subscribers.  

“I like to think that Saturday afternoon is still my time. If I’m not racing on a Saturday night I go detecting. I leave the mobile phone in the car, go out into the bush and I’m my own man.”  

Words & main image: Tony Sawrey. Inset: Supplied

Richard Herr, otherwise known as Ritchie Rich, is a Daylesford icon. There is no doubt about that. Many people are familiar with his sartorial excess as part of his many appearances in the yearly Chill Out parade. Others know him as the best dressed Santa in town.  

Flamboyant, gregarious, larger  than life, you could call him the soul of contemporary Daylesford. A living  encapsulation of the town’s inclusivity,  exclusivity and idiosyncrasies.  

Like so many of the eccentric creative types who have found their way to  this town, Ritchie’s journey has been a long and convoluted one and began in Melbourne.  

“I was born from German Polish parents with a very traditional European upbringing in the suburbs of Springvale.  I was bullied at school for being both European and effeminate and while my grandpa was an artist and my mother was very creative, my father tried to suppress  all my creative inclinations.”

Ritchie, like any boy with dreams of a career in a creative field, decided to go to art school. But his father put a stop to all that.

“He said ‘no, you’ve gotta go and get a job’.”  

Consequently Ritchie began running  little cafes, became a film crew caterer and also travelled widely in Europe with his then girlfriend.

It was the 80s, an age of neon, punk, gender bending and artistic decadence and certainly  a great time to be swanning around the continent soaking up ideas and influences. But if there is a time in his life, a point upon which everything  pivoted, it was at the grand age of 36.  

“That’s when I took on Merricks General Store (built in 1922 by the Joyner family on the Mornington  Peninsula),” Ritchie says.

“And it was also the year I came out. It was an era of madness and creativity, alcohol, happiness,  sadness and table top dancing.

“From that point in my life I just went full steam ahead. Ever since then I’ve never had any boundaries. I’ve had businesses, I’ve lost money and I didn’t care. I would just shrug and think: ‘right, that chapter’s over’ and go and do something else.”  

But the film catering gigs remained a constant. He could not get enough of the intrigue and glamour of visiting Hollywood productions with their pampered superstars and people with big bad egos.

And if there is any department privy to the gossip, stories and tantrums of a film set it is the caterer.

At one point or another everybody will pass through the dining marquee, eating, drinking and letting their guard down over bountiful food.

And ultimately, it was film production catering that brought Ritchie to Daylesford in 2001, sparking his love affair with the town that smoulders to this day.  

“I was working on the short lived TV series Ponderosa at Kataminga near Newbury and ended up living here for two years,” he says.

“I then moved to the town permanently in 2014.”  

But then life bowled Ritchie another curveball around 50 years of age. He got  diagnosed with HIV and two shots of cancer.

“I also got my first tattoo,” he adds.  

Of course Ritchie remains here today to tell his tale which means he conquered his bouts of cancer and is managing his health. To say he is a survivor is stating the obvious but to thrive is another thing entirely.

But thrive he has and one of the things that helped was his segue into the world  of philanthropy and fundraising. It was both a way of helping people in need and best of all, another way to express himself.  

“First up I walked 740 kilometres from the Mornington Peninsula to Canberra  with artist Clare Whitney in 2008 raising $50,000 for the Scaffidi Foundation,” he says.

“After this I helped raise approximately $100,000 for the Kids in Cambodia Charity.  I have also assisted the local CFA and organised a ‘homeless couture’ event at the  Daylesford Town Hall in 2018 – raising money for the purchase and distribution of  backpack beds for Central Victoria.”  

Ritchie has spent enough time in the town to be acutely aware of the changes  that have taken place over the years and the things that have stayed the same.

His  first impression of the town over 25 years ago was one of an absolutely vibrant  Vincent Street with very eccentric people and fabulous shops, something Ritchie  contributed to with own place, the sorely missed Ruby Slippers on Howe Street.  

“I look at Daylesford now and it has gone so mainstream and very business  oriented. But what I still like about the town is Monday to Friday, as daggy as Vincent Street is, the colourful people are still there and they all come out.”  

Words: Tony Sawrey | Image: Inkdfotogrfa Daylesford    

Sage Roadknight 19, is a singer from the Macedon Ranges creating in her  own words, ‘futuristic folk music’.

She comes from a musical family, has been  involved with music for pretty much her whole life and first started with the  piano at age six.  

The last time we featured Sage in 2021 she had just won the Macedon Ranges Shire Council’s Battle of the Bandwidth competition and since that time she has continued writing and producing music with vulnerability and insight delivering messages focusing on political, environmental and existential issues.  

Now it’s three years later, a very long time in the shifting world of pop music. But Sage is ticking along, producing albums and singles while attaching an increasingly  sophisticated production quality to her growing repertoire.  

“The last couple of years I’ve been juggling school and music,” she says, “but  I’ve managed to get a couple of notable things done. I was short listed in the environmental music prize in 2022 and after that I had this song called Trust the  Dead that I produced for a music industry class, selected for the VCE Season of  Excellence and exhibited at the Melbourne Museum.”  

Sage has also completed her first full studio album Living Thing released in June 2023. Coming in at around 42 minutes, it consists of 13 tracks delivering a highly  emotive and transporting experience asking you to confront the question: what is it to be a living thing?  

“The response to it has been absolutely incredible and It’s lovely to have things  I’ve written out there accessible to the public.”  

However Sage is not one to sit back now this major project, four years in the  making, has been completed. She has recently released Wake Up. It has a different feel to what she was doing with Living Thing.

That work was essentially an epic concept  project featuring fairies, robots and an apocalyptic flood. But Wake Up is a 80s electronic pop work inspired track with a serious message regarding contemporary class struggle.  

“I hope listeners see the seriousness. With a lot of songs, people choose to not  listen to the lyrics and that’s their loss. But with that song it is pretty prominent, I’m not really hiding anything or being metaphorical. It’s all out in the open.”  

Having amassed such a strong back catalogue, Sage is now at a point in her music career where she wants to merge the character of her studio productions with that of her performances. Presently her live shows are a simple affair, that of a single guitar accompanied by her ethereal voice.  

“I’m looking to start a band. We’ve been talking it over in the household saying: ‘I  really need to make my stage act a little bit more pa-pow!’ It is currently very acoustic  and I would like to have a bigger sound.  

“What I’m aiming for right now is to be able to grab my mic and dance around  on stage instead of being stuck in the same spot with my guitar.

“It would be nice to  get a bit of movement around because I am really starting to feel myself on stage and  the vibe and energy of the audience.”  

As 2024 concludes, Sage is busy collaborating with producers Ricky Ray and Shane Ray on her next studio album which is slated for release next June.

If you want  to see Sage play, her next live appearance will be at the Newstead Folk Festival in January. After that? Well, who knows.  

“As for remaining around regional Victoria or Melbourne, I guess we’ll see. If  something happens and there is an opportunity for me then I’ll go where the wind  blows me.”  

Words: Tony Sawrey | Image: Jaqueline Rae  

After a long period of closure, retired sportsperson Chris Anstey re-opened the refurbished Trentham Hotel last January. 

While it is still early days, the return of this beloved pub to the main street has had an extremely positive effect on both locals and visitors alike.

In that time Chris has hosted numerous guest appearances and events, even getting Trentham included as a stop on the official 2024 Melbourne Cup Tour last month. 

Operating a business such as this is a great commitment and no doubt a challenge. But challenge and commitment are the two pillars that make up the former basketball champion philosophy both in his sporting career and now as a businessman. 

His playing career spanned from 1994 to 2010. In that time he played for the Melbourne Tigers, South East Melbourne Magic and Victoria Titans in the National Basketball League and spent several seasons with the American National Basketball Association.

He was also away for three years playing in Russia and Europe, and played with the Australian Boomers in the 2000 and 2008 Olympics in Sydney and Beijing.

After retiring he continued coaching. Playing at the top level in any sporting discipline is a specialist world, one that most of us will never experience.

It is for this reason among many that people look up to athletes for some wisdom gleaned from the sporting ring that will help with the challenges of daily life. 

One of those questions we may ask is what does it take to operate under the expectations and pressure of fans, coaches, management and other players.

Surely there is something as ‘non-combatants’ we can learn from an athlete to manage our personal endeavours. However the reality of being in this world, at least according to Chris Anstey, is enlightening as it is surprising. 

“Pressure is not real, pressure is only other people’s expectations,” says Chris. “That’s one thing you learn as an athlete. If you are prepared and if you have done the work, then whatever the results are the results. That’s what a lot of people who haven’t been around sport don’t quite understand.

“They just see the scoreboard at the end. But for us, it’s more about process and finding small wins on the way, making or contributing to others around us, getting better and trying to achieve something collectively.” 

After his retirement, Chris moved easily into the business sphere and like so many sports people who have made this step, he sees parallels, significant contrasts, but also a realisation that the desire to improve, found so readily in sporting teams, does not always make it over into the working world. 

“A general observation is that in the workplace people don’t come in seeking to improve themselves, they just want to turn up, get paid and go home. Whereas being around sport for a long time, you know that everyone turning up to work isn’t just doing so because they get paid to do it. They are (there) to improve themselves and improve the group.

“A lot of athletes invest in themselves in their own time and that’s a big one for me. (In daily life) it’s a little bit rare for people to invest in themselves in their own time. They want to do it on company time or team time.” 

Now that the Trentham Hotel is up and running, Chris has the business where he can apply his personal philosophy to growing as a person along with the people and staff around him.

Perhaps his approach is unique or the way of the courageous. But Chris prefers to see his attitude as being a little bit naive in the way he approaches things and not worry about setbacks.

He sees this as one of the most important things he learnt as a player, having your eyes wide open and accepting that if you fail you come back the next day and start again. It’s not fatal. 

“Over my career I learnt as much at the end of my career from the rookies as I did from those that had been coaching for 30 or 40 years. Having a very open mind and being open to different personalities, different ideas and different challenges.

“I think one of the most dangerous phrases in the English language is: ‘We have always done it this way so it is the right way to do it,’ whereas I was always looking to something a little bit different. I like to ask ‘why not?’ instead of ‘why?’”

An important thing to note is even though Chris has written books on his experiences and been placed in the role of motivator to aspiring sportspeople and business leaders, he does not consider himself to be a mentor in any sense of the word. He just has a story to tell like all of us. 

“I don’t consider myself a teacher,” he says. “I’m simply a big believer in whatever question you ask, the answer is going to be the people around you.

“Furthermore I just like to share stories and if it resonates with people that’s great. But everything is only a suggestion, and as much as anything, I like listening to other peoples stories just as much as I like telling my own.” 

Words: Tony Sawrey | Image: Contributed 

Long-standing Korweinguboora resident Jean Howard has had the local  reserve’s kitchen named after her – as part of a revival of the reserve’s complex.  

The extensive renovations included installing a new kitchen, officially opened on Sunday, October 27, with a high tea attended by 50 people.  

The renovations came after a new committee was formed in early 2023 and undertook $65,000 worth of work to revive the complex that first opened in 1969 as home of the Korweinguboora Football Club.

Initiated with the support of Moorabool Shire Council, the renovations have  included changing all appliances to electric, removing the hall from fossil fuel use,  painting the exterior and grading the driveway.  

“It is the most wonderful asset for Korweinguboora,” says committee chair Sue  Bottrell, “and brings people together to develop bonds and friendship. In these times  of unprecedented loneliness and isolation, it is very important.”

Cr Ally Munari from Moorabool Shire attended to unveil the new facility and celebrate the contribution of Ms Howard who has lived in Korweinguboora for 75 years and has fond memories of her time working on the Recreation Reserve  committee.  

“I was excited to have the kitchen named after me,” says Jean. “It was a real  honour, and it was beaut to see lots of people. It was a lovely get together and catch  up, especially with those who mean the most to me.  

“The committee was more like a social group, locals who became friends. Everyone  just pitched in and did what was needed to be done.

“The reserve has certainly changed  over the years, with the biggest improvement being the addition of the primary school  building to the existing footy club rooms.  

“Gwen Bryant and I had to wade through lots of red tape to secure the building and relocate it. The committee had to work hard to fundraise $10,000 and then we had to borrow a further $10,000 from the Ballan Council.”  

Sue says Jean was a member of the committee from 1984 to 2010. “She is renowned for her cooking and was a key driver behind upgrading the hall in the late  1990s by purchasing the local school and moving it to the reserve, instantly doubling  the size of the facility.”  

With Jean as president, the committee raised money to maintain the reserve by  holding dinner dances at the pub, community raffles, Christmas functions, and hall  hirings.

“Without Jean’s leadership, dedication and determination, we would not have this wonderful space to use today,” Sue added.  

Korweinguboora, like so many localities dotted around the Victorian countryside,  has seen its ups and downs. The area began as a logging town in the 19th century, supplying timber to the mines of the nearby goldfields.  

At its height, Korweinguboora and nearby Spargo Creek were the main settlements  in the area, boasting stores, churches, pubs and schools.  

By the time of the old Mineral Springs Hotel closure a decade ago, the area including the Recreation Reserve, owned by the Department of Energy, Environment and Climate Action, was becoming increasingly vulnerable to the sort of decline  familiar to public facilities in many other rural areas.

However with the efforts of the new Committee of Management, the reserve has been given a new lease on life, ensuring the site flourishes as a gathering place for community, visitors, and celebrations well into the future.  

But the work is still ongoing, there are plans in place to install a wheelchair accessible toilet, paint the hall’s interior, and re-polish the floors.

All of this work is not only to offer a top notch recreation facility on the edge of the Wombat State Forest but to maintain the vitality of the Korweinguboora community.  

Words: Tony Sawrey | Image: Supplied  

In every community around the country there are a multitude of stories to be told. So many of those tales are ones of diaspora, of individuals and families from all backgrounds fleeing poverty, war and social upheaval and creating a new life.     

Hepburn’s Morgan Williams, of Radius Gallery, is currently writing a book about his own mother Stephany’s long journey from war-ravaged Holland to Australia.     

“I started writing a novel based on the experiences of my family,” says Morgan, “vignettes of the times and Mum’s life. The book has always been on my mind and I’m halfway through doing it.”

The tale is taken up in a small town called Borne close to the border of Germany and one Dr Rudolf Panhuysen. Born in 1897 he was a general practitioner and was known as a skilled, knowledgeable and well-respected physician.     

As a health officer, he was mobilised in 1939 attending to battlefield casualties before resuming his practice at 1 Korte Wensinkweg. The three-storey house held his surgery on the ground floor and his family home upstairs.

Unbeknownst to authorities it also became a stopover on an extensive underground resistance network against the occupying Nazis.     

At great risk to himself and his family, the house became a refuge for resistance fighters, fugitive Jews, British and American airmen and other people in hiding.

The examination table in his consulting room sat on a carpet that, when needed, could be moved aside to reveal a trap door and stairs to a hidden room below.  

“It was really full on when I first went to the house in the 1990s with mum,” says Morgan.

“The person who lived there recognised her from 30 years previously and invited us in. While the place has now been renovated, at that time little had changed, there were even still kids’ toys and names engraved on the walls in the attic.     

“Mum was amazed and got very nostalgic seeing the house as it pretty much was  when they left. While we didn’t open it, the trap door was still there along with bullet holes from when the Nazis raided the place.”     

That event took place in February 1945. Betrayal led a squad of Landwachters to surround and storm the house.

The Landwacht were the feared and hated internal paramilitary organisation that did the occupiers’ dirty work and they arrested a total  of 13 people that day.     

Amazingly, all those arrested, including Dr Panhuysen and his wife Helena (who was also part of an espionage ring), did eventually survive the war.

A miracle considering the ruthless methods of the Nazis and the common fate of so many members of resistance groups all over occupied Europe.     

In 1954 the Panhuysen family including Stephany, who was just eight years old, left Holland to resettle in Perth, Western Australia.

Perth was and remains one of the most remote capital cities in the world and light years away from the wreckage of post- war Holland. It was the ideal place to start life over.     

“After going through two major European wars within 30 years, they saw no reason why it could not happen all over again,” says Morgan. “Perth was isolated and that’s exactly where they wanted to be.”     

After migrating to Australia Dr Panhuysen continued practising medicine as a ship doctor on Dutch ships before retiring. He died in August 1976.     

Back in Holland, the country would slowly rebuild and along the way become one of Europe’s success stories, a prosperous and progressive country that went to great lengths to recognise those mostly anonymous heroes who maintained resistance against incredible odds in the darkest days of World War II.     

In the mid 80s as gratitude for his wartime efforts, the city of Borne named a street after Dr Rudolf Panhuysen. And the house at 1 Korte Wensinkweg, that held his old surgery, remains standing to this day.     

Meanwhile Stephany would grow up in Western Australia before moving over to the east coast and raising a family.

Today she lives with Morgan and his partner Kim in Hepburn, generations and half a world away from the trials, deprivations and memories of another time and place.     

“All of my cousins and family have gone over there to see the house, see the street and take a photo, just like me and mum did. The latest visitor in early September was our son Josh. It is kind of a family pilgrimage in a way.”     

Words: Tony Sawrey | Images: Supplied     

The first day of the 2024 Royal Melbourne Show was a great day for Musk’s Oberon Suffolk Stud.

Owned by Bruce Rolfe (pictured) and Douglas Scott, Oberon Stud took away multiple awards for Oberon 3039 aka Gloria.   

The young animal, who lives with her flock on Bruce and Doug’s farm in Musk, won Supreme Champion Suffolk, Champion Suffolk Ewe, Interbreed Champion Ewe and Interbreed Champion Shortwool Ewe.   

“Suffice to say we are ecstatic to have been awarded the Supreme Champion Suffolk award for one of our ewes,” says Bruce.   

“It is a lot of work, particularly in the cold climate that we live in, to get sheep to this standard.

“But our efforts over the past years seem to be being recognised. Love, good pastures enriched with organic fertilisers and bio-dynamic preparations plus the time invested in improving our robust genetics has been well rewarded this year with success across the show seasons.”  

Bruce and Doug have great affection and respect for their champion ewe and all their sheep and love how they respond to their constant work and attention.   

The next steps will be to continue developing their award-winning genetics into the future.

“We are currently considering where we go next for the sire to use with Gloria,” says Bruce.

“He has to be special.”   

Gloria first featured in the July 18 edition of The Local.   

Words: Tony Sawrey | Image: Supplied   

The Local journalist Tony Sawrey is one of the  artists taking part in the SWELL Sculpture  Festival being held at Currumbin Beach,  Queensland, until September 15.

Tony’s piece is titled Personal Space Elevator with its description: “10 tonnes of atmosphere press on  you. Enter your personal space elevator. Tsiolkovsky’s star ladder made manifest.

“Forget Newtonian physics;  this column gives you flight via pure thought, pure  imagination. Face into the sky, find the rips in the fabric, launch, accelerate, dodge the veil of space junk  around this world, and cast your imagination into the  cosmos.

“The earth evaporates beneath your feet. All  that is solid melts into air. Faster than the speed of  light, faster than time, faster than reality. What awaits  you in the infinite beyond?”  

Tony, who lives in Musk, completed a Bachelor  of Fine Arts at Sydney College of the Arts and a Masters of Fine Art at Victorian College of the Arts in  Melbourne.

His major studies were in studio painting but in time he began to create large scale environment art utilising marking fluids and a motorised spray pump.  

He has produced commissions for numerous  exhibitions and clients including Sculpture by the Sea  Bondi and Cottesloe, Lorne Sculpture Bienniale and  Sculpture in the Vineyards Wollombi.  

with Eve Lamb

Taradale potter Ian (Ox) McColl unearthed a passion for pottery while still in his teens. It was a discovery that has shaped his life’s path ever since. Now Ian and his wife, Leanne Manniche who is also a talented and accomplished ceramicist, run Oxart at Taradale offering a unique gallery attraction full of functional and aesthetic creations as well as the opportunity for others to learn their time-honoured functional craft and multi-dimensional art.

Eve: G’day Ian. How did you get into pottery?

Ian: I was in year 10 at school and chose ceramics because I thought it would  be easy and wouldn’t require exams. I loved it from the first moment I got on the pottery wheel.

Eve: What has been your path since then?

Ian: I went to uni in Bendigo and studied ceramics and then went into the industry, working on a large commercial scale. Then I became a school teacher, woodwork and ceramics, but I’ve been working as a potter full-time now for about the last four years.

Eve: Now I know that your wife, Leanne, is also a ceramicist. How do the two of you go working together? How does your work differ?

Ian: Yes, Leanne got into making pottery, hand building and also working on the wheel, after meeting me. She also does a lot of the firing and also a lot of the marketing and selling through the gallery. Leanne is much more into painted decoration. There’s no competition at all (laughs).

Eve: I know that a lot of your own work is functional, but how do you incorporate art and artistry into your practice?

Ian: The eternal question that arises with ceramics is function versus artistry. My main thing is form. Every time you create a new form that’s where the artistry is. I love working with form, using the wheel at the same time, creating objects and from there I use glaze to enhance the form so it’s also about the glazes and the colours. I use a lot of the Japanese style glaze called shino.

Eve: Well that leads me to ask you whether your practice has taken you to some interesting places?

Ian: Yes. It has. I did a short stint in Japan. Everywhere I travel I try to reach out to potters in the area to try and learn from them. At the moment I am in Narooma (NSW) learning from a friend, Cameron Williams,who specialises in making enormous pots. I’m learning a lot.

Eve: Are they for outdoors? Garden urns?

Ian: They’re suited to either outdoors or indoors.

Eve: Do you have any special events or exhibitions coming up?

Ian: Yes I will have work in the Ross Creek Gallery group show at Smythes Creek over October 5-20. I will have some of the big pots that I am learning to make now in that exhibition. I will also be part of the Australian Ceramics Open Studios weekend event over November 23 and 24. And we also have our annual Friends of Oxart Christmas market on December 1 at our gallery in Taradale with a lot of other makers and artists.

Eve: How are your classes that you offer at Oxart going? Who do you get participating?

Ian: We’re doing loads of classes, and also workshops, and we’re getting everyone from kids to people aged over 90. We have one student in his 90s. We haven’t had anyone aged 100 yet. We’ve had a class with mums and their toddlers. We also get kids and teenagers. We have regular classes and people can learn what they want to learn whether it’s wheel work or hand building.

Eve: How do you find teaching?

Ian: I think the act of teaching refines your own practice all the time. It really, really hones your own skills.

Hepburn Shire Council has just recently endorsed its  first Arts and Culture Strategy with the aim to provide  a strategic framework for artists, art organisations,  businesses and visitors to ferment a healthy arts culture.  

It was compiled with the assistance of community feedback,  surveys and interviews with relevant bodies such as regional  museums, Daylesford Macedon Tourism and most importantly for sector support and funding opportunities, Regional Arts  Victoria.  

Regional Arts Victoria was formed in 1999 from the bones  of the old Victorian Arts Council. It is an independent, not-for-  profit organisation with over 700 members across the state.  

They work in long-term partnerships at every level of  government, encompassing all art forms of creative practice and  artistic experience.

Due to their efforts regional art networks are  growing stronger, giving cause for optimism among creatives  outside of the big smoke, a trend being repeated here in our own  shire.

Today, as demographic changes continue to reshape country  Victoria and many local economies shift from predominantly  primary industries such as logging, mining and agriculture to  include tourism, lifestyle and services connected with population  growth, creatives are becoming more assured about their place  within those communities.  

Jo Porter, academic, consultant and current CEO of Regional  Arts Victoria, explains further: “I think there is a  growing sense of confidence in being a regionally based artist and  the understanding that one’s art form may be informed by its  context but not be defined by that context.”  

Jo has been involved with theatre production for many  years from Circus Oz to executive producer duties at Malthouse Theatre and more.  

Over the years much of that work has included touring  programs across regional areas of Australia where she was  and continues to be “inspired by the specificity of experience  that feels available and possible in places where the natural  environment is more immediate and people say hello in the  street”.  

With their focus on regionally based artists, the organisation  is continuously engaging with the question of what creative  practice means outside of metropolitan life.  

And while the city/country divide may have become  distinctly blurred over the years, the notion that regional simply  means everything that isn’t in a city remains.

“However, when you are a practitioner in a regional setting,” says Jo “you acquire  a very clear understanding of the granular diversity there is across all these little  towns, big towns and all those areas where there are no towns at all.”  

Having grown up in the bush, at a time when there were no mobiles or internet, three TV channels and one rubbish-littered two-lane highway passing through to the  capital cities, I just assumed that anything interesting only happened in those places –  be it theatre, painting exhibitions or whatever.  

Maybe age changes your perspective on things but it certainly seems that  opportunities have improved for bush-based artists over the years. Maybe I’m wrong. Perhaps I’m not seeing the complete picture?  

“Nearly all of RAV’s staff are regionally-based.” says Jo.

“Eyes on the ground,  you might say and some of them are specifically tasked with supporting people’s  capabilities and helping their network make connections.  

“I think that one of the things that’s changed is the sense of feeling closer to  audiences and marketplaces.

“Today connectivity has become something that is taken  for granted but it has only really come about in the past 15-20 years.”  

As mentioned there is fresh resolve in the regional arts landscape and among its  community for the arts to be supported from touring and promotion to assistance  with professional development and employment.  

And in doing so to dissolve the usual ingrained perceptions of some kind of  disparity between urban and regional arts practice.  

“You may have a different work context or a different set of ideas to explore  because you walk out the door and see very different things, but it does not, or should  not denote hierarchy. I do think that we are stepping away from that.”  

Creative practice outside metropolitan life  If anything acts as a stumbling block to the development of a meaningful arts  environment in Hepburn Shire it is the ever-familiar argument about what should be  prioritised with limited budgets, especially when the council is a fair bit into the red.  

Why should we throw money at public sculpture or a youth arts space when our  roads are in disrepair? Why should we spend money on venues when we need public  housing? And so on.

“Traditionally there has just been focus on some hierarchy of needs,” says Jo.  “That garbage collection and fixing the potholes should come first. But I would like  to just move away from those binary conversations.  

“If you are not investing in the whole system, then just fixing the roads or rubbish collection is not enough.

“No one is going to move to the regions if they can’t get a  doctor and why would a doctor want to move here if they can’t send their kids to a  school where there is a music teacher?”

 Words: Tony Sawrey | Image: Contributed