Work is soon to begin to renovate the historic day basin at Daylesford’s Wombat Hill Botanic Gardens.

The Day Basin, which historically served as Daylesford’s town reservoir, is set to be transformed into an attractive water feature for the popular local gardens.

The Basin is located at the base of the historic Pioneer Memorial Tower near the Wombat Hill car park.

The project has been championed by the Friends of Wombat Hill Botanic Garden who are providing some of the funding towards the project.

The Victorian State Government’s Regional Infrastructure Fund and the Hepburn Shire Council are also helping to fund the project which is a key one for the Friends group.

A number of early morning walkers in Daylesford will have seen the sign advertising an application to Heritage Victoria on behalf of Friends of Wombat Hill Botanic Gardens.

Until this application is finalised, the full detail of plans and siting cannot be determined. The current proposal is a wooden seat and shelter in the style of a botanic garden’s traditional pavilion.

A similar one existed on the other side of the gardens until the 1980s. The main purpose of the structure is to provide a small, sheltered seat to enjoy the view to the south and east.

The rustic timber cladding has been preserved from the dead giant redwood felled in 2021, whose stump remains a little further up the bank above the seat.

The Most Wuthering Heights Day Ever is an event held at locations around the world where participants recreate the music video for musician Kate Bush’s 1978 song Wuthering Heights.

The event’s inspiration is Shambush’s The Ultimate Kate Bush Experience, which took place in 2013 in Brighton, United Kingdom, as part of Brighton Fringe, created by performance collective Shambush! who attempted to set an unofficial world record for the most people dressed as Kate Bush in one place, with hundreds attending.

And thanks to Spade to Blade’s Gary Thomas, centre, and the Hepburn Dancers, this wonderful event was also held at the Wombat Hill Botanic Gardens in Daylesford – led by dancer Tuesday Telford Perkins – on Sunday July 21.

Photos on the day were taken by Janine Bennetti, Trudi Blick & Isabella Thomas

Coomoora’s Patrice O’Shea recently received an Order of Australia Medal in the General Division for services to the environment and secondary education in the King’s Birthday Honours list.

Patrice has been secretary of the Friends of Wombat Hill Botanic Gardens since 2010 and was a teacher at Ballarat Grammar from 1982 to 2009.

Patrice said the award was “affirming” but was keen to add that many people were just as worthy. “But it is a lovely thing that people have gone to considerable effort to make it happen and it is pretty affirming to know that.”

“I think the vast majority of people in education work bloody hard and why do you single out one person, but having said that it was a profession that I certainly enjoyed enormously.

“I enjoyed where I worked, the kids I taught, the stuff I taught. It is hard work, there is no doubt about that, but the vast majority of people who do it are worthy of recognition.”

Patrice said she entered teaching because she enjoyed being a student. “I enjoyed stuff, understanding things, working things out, finding out about things, so it was something I enjoyed personally and seemed an OK thing to do as a career.

“But also, given the age, there was a tendency on the part of girls to either go into nursing or teaching.”

Patrice, who attended Catholic schools, said she had good teachers who made a difference in her life.

“All of my education was with nuns, and there is sort of the luck of the draw at any school, but I had remarkable women teaching me.

“You would hope good teachers make a difference – that’s the plan, what’s supposed to happen and you would hope if you were in the (teaching) game you would be one of them, you would give it your best shot anyway.”

Patrice said she had retired some years ago so the full implications of the digital age in teaching were not something she had experienced but she believed personal engagement was the critical element for teachers.

“During Covid teachers did work from home and my observations are that it near killed them. Really it is one of the jobs where you just have to be there. A bit like a GP.

“Telehealth is a wonderful thing but in the end you really have to be in the room with the person in my view.”

Patrice and her family lived in Daylesford, just below Wombat Hill Botanic Gardens, from 1976 to 1990, and they were “sort of like a big backyard”.

“Like many people I do enjoy gardens, trees in particular, plants and people so the Friends of the Gardens is really a terrific focus for all of those interests. That is what made the Friends such a good thing for me and for others too. It is a community organisation but also a community in itself.”

Patrice said she believed people were increasingly realising the importance of the gardens and how precious they are to the region.

“They are so wild and romantic in so many ways and so pleasant to be in, in so many other ways. Even when the weather is terrible there are pleasures to be had up there, as long as you are appropriately clothed.”

Patrice said the Friends of the Gardens were holding a first, a community Winter in the Gardens Festival, with the intriguing subtitle of “mists, magic and mystery”.

“It’s the first weekend of August, all orchestrated by one of the Friends, Frank Page, and we are having a series of talks, a dinner on the Saturday night to which people are cordially invited, tours of the gardens, the Daylesford Museum is putting on an exhibition and there’s even a winter flower show in the conservatory.

“It’s a wonderful community event with the Friends of the Gardens, the Daylesford Horticultural Society, the Agricultural Society, the Historical Society and U3A involved.

“It’s all free, except for the dinner, and we will be enjoying the gardens at a time of the year which is not what you see in the glossy magazines. It is a fantastic thing.”

Words: Donna Kelly | Image: Eve Lamb