The visitors guide to the Central Highlands Autumn 2025
RUSTIC HABITAT
NOW OPEN
Rustic Habitat is a packed to the brim, fun and quirky little vintage shop filled with a sensory overload of colour. From salt and peppers lining the windows to China collectables and vintage toys, there is something for absolutely everyone. There is a rustic metal outdoor area chockas full of interesting bits and pieces, and a courtyard play area designed just for fun! Free rides, big games and many gnomes to meet in there.
We’ve created a place where everyone can feel relaxed and happy. Somewhere for local families and passers-by to come, and just enjoy.
955 Daylesford-Trentham Road, BULLARTO
Open Saturdays & Sundays 10-3pm
Over the past decade there has been an average of 8000 Miner’s Right licences sold in Victoria each year.
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. 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, 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 prospectors in the 1800s.
This is one of my favourite 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 Warehouse-Clunes). 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.
Clunes Original Homestead Creekside Walk. 4.5km loop
The Block 2025 is being filmed in Daylesford and the Raglan Street site already has the steel bones of five huge houses up, waiting for the contestants to arrive next month to turn them into homes.
The show’s executive producer Julian Cress said everything was shaping up well for the start of the show. “We are just finalising our pre-production at the moment, getting all of the properties ready, getting our contestants ready and getting our crew ready. We kick off in a few weeks’ time, and everything’s looking really positive. We start filming in March, and we’ll finish in June. The response we’ve had from the wider community has been absolutely awesome, extremely positive, and very welcoming. And let’s not forget, it’s not just about the audience watching the show in Australia. Our show goes to over 170 territories around the world. And, you know, we’re going to spend millions of dollars locally.” Read the full story at www.tlnews.com.au - Edition 326
Let’s support our community and shop local!
“Locals supporting Locals” Restaurants, Bakers, Butchers, Cafe’s, Local vineyards, Distillers, Brewers and of course each other.
Remember we offer free delivery, T&Cs apply.
Delivery times are Monday to Saturday between 10am and 4pm. We accept credit cards over the phone or we have an on-board eftpos machine. You will need to be at home for the delivery with proof of age if asked by the driver. Give the Foxxy team a call on 5348 3577. Keep safe, everyone.
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 labour at Musk Manor have 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 7am 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.
Read the full story at www.tlnews.com.au
Glenlyon’s Claire Clifton is a great example of how being told you’re no good at something may just lead you to become very good at it indeed.
Claire’s passion for using creative art to express the inner selfparticularly that which does not readily find expression any other way - has led her to produce powerful and award-winning abstract works, to find immense joy in her own life and recently, to establish a very special program that helps others de-stress and tap into their own inner creative spirit. “I was totally not an artist. I was told that very firmly by a teacher at school, that I was not a painter in anyway. So I went to textiles and interestingly when I did it, it came out abstract. I didn’t start painting until 1996, with some encouragement from a friend. Naturally it was abstract. The very first painting I did I still have. It’s called Onward and Upward. I looked at it and thought - ‘that’s my life’.”
Read the full story at www.tlnews.com.au -
Markets...
Clunes Farmers Market
Castlemaine Artists Market
Kyneton Farmers Market
Ballan Farmers Market
Maldon Market
Trentham Farmers & Makers Markets
Glenlyon Farmers Market
Creswick Market
Leonards Hill Market
Talbot Farmers Market
Woodend Lions Market
Malmsbury Farmers Market
Daylesford Rotary Market
Trentham Station Market
Daylesford Railway Market
The Three Lost Children Walk. Daylesford-Musk Creek, 15 km (Part A)
The first day of 2025 dawns sunny and mild, temperature in the mid20s with a promise to reach no more than 28 degrees. Ideal bushwalking. Too good to pass up. I check in with my trusty walking companion, Paddy H, and we decide it’s more than time to tackle the famed Three Lost Children Walk. This bushland walk covers 15km starting in Daylesford, taking in part of Hepburn Regional Park and part of the Wombat State Forest. It ends at the Wombat Creek Picnic Area near Musk. It commemorates the tragic tale from Daylesford’s gold-rush era when three small boys, William Graham, 6, his brother Thomas, 4, and Alfred Burman, 5, wandered away from their homes in Daylesford on June 30, 1867. Sadly, despite a massive search they were not found alive.
Read the full story at www.tlnews.com.au - Edition 323
The Little Local - thelittlelocal.com.au
10 Stony Creek Road, Daylesford VIC 3460
P: (03) 5348 1884
E: info@stonycreekgallery.com.au
Trading Hours:
Open: Thurs - Mon 10:30 am - 5:00 pm
Closed: Tues - Wed
Michael Parker welcomes his Galleries and Sculpture Daylesford. Featuring original paintings sculptures, including mediums by regional .Paintings .Sculptures .Jewellery .Ceramics
Clunes’ Christine Lethlean is renowned for her beautiful textile work and well known through her role as a textiles art tutor and regional co-ordinator for the biennial Textile Palette exhibition held at Clunes’ Warehouse.
But this talented 3D conceptual artist is equally at home working with media spanning print, sculpture, paint and lead to create works that constantly push her own creative boundaries in a quest to elicit in others a desire to look more closely. “Over the past 22 months I have been creating work focusing on the ageing woman, body shape, and the concept of letting go of what was and moving into what is. Work I have produced as part of this project was exhibited in several different exhibitions last year including at the fortyfivedownstairs gallery in Melbourne and at Oxygen College in Ballarat, and I’m continuing with this project.”
Read the full story at www.tlnews.com.au - Edition 324
Places to go for free!
Creswick’s parkrun
Jubilee Lake
Mt Franklin Reserve
Thomas’ Lookout/Cornish Hill
Glenlyon Reserve
Daylesford Mill Market
Lake Daylesford
Wombat Hill Botanic Garden
Trentham Rail Trail
Trentham Falls
Myriad mineral springs
Bush walks
Lerderderg Gorge
Glenlyon Falls
Sailors Falls waterfall/lookout, pictured
Djuwang Baring (Creswick Trails)
Radio Springs Hotel has served its last drinks after 17 years providing refreshments, and plenty of bar banter, with locals and visitors alike.
The final day, Sunday, January 26, saw many people make their way to the Lyonville pub to say farewells and reminisce about great times. The decision to close the doors came after owners Jackie Airey and Ken Parfrey started to think about the next phase of their lives. “We’ve been doing it for nearly 17 years now and we felt we might like to move on,” Jackie said. “However, on a weekend in February, we had a sudden change in our staffing and we thought about it and whether or not we had the energy to recreate what we’ve got. And we thought, well, would it be right to do that for only a few months, take on new people and all that kind of thing? So we thought maybe we’ll just call it now. We’ll just wait for the dust to settle and then we’ll have a good think. We don’t want to make a rushed decision, we want to make the right decision.”
Read the full story at www.tlnews.com.au - Edition 324
• Extensive
• Rustic
• Accessible
• Coffee,
• Parking
• Activities
• All
ChillOut president Matt Clarke was born and raised in regional Victoria in the small town of Wycheproof. The youngest of six kids, life was all about farming, agriculture and local sport.
“And then you finish school and move away and come up with whatever you’re going to do for the rest of your life,” he said. “I was a bit lost when I left school, I didn’t really know what I was going to do. I wanted to be a vet, I wanted to be a paramedic. I wanted to be a heap of things. But I had a really underlying passion for horses and the equines.” Not into doing things by halves, Matt headed to a big harness racing stable in Great Western, Victoria and spent the next 15 years there, on and off, training horses and competing all over Australia and New Zealand. After a while Matt, doing that full-on thing again, moved to Ballarat for “the love of my life - but that didn’t work out”. Matt said he remained in Ballarat but was lonely and without a tribe. And then he found ChillOut, joined the commitee and is now president. Tribe found. Read the full story at www.tlnews.com.au - Edition 325
Numbers you might need
Emergency – Fire, Police, Ambulance - 000
Daylesford Taxis – 5348 1111
Springs Medical Centre, Daylesford – 5348 2227
Daylesford Hospital – 5321 6500
Daylesford Police – 5348 2342
SES – 132 500
Daylesford Regional Visitor Information Centre – 5321 6123
Places you might need
Daylesford Post Office – 86 Vincent Street
ATMs in Daylesford:
Bendigo – 97 Vincent Street
Westpac – 45 Vincent Street
Commonwealth – 36-40 Vincent Street
ANZ - 52 Vincent Street
A secret you might like!
Macedon’s ‘Anti-Gravity Hill’ is a strange place - you really do have to see it to believe it. If you roll a ball at the bottom of the hill it “rolls up” the hill, not down. You can do the same thing in a car, if you have a manual. Just pop it in neutral and off you go. And if you slip your trainers on, when you run downhill it feels like you’re running uphill - and vice versa. Baffling...
Will sell out - only 2000 tickets! 16 intimate venues small toWn vibe camping and resort accommodation school holiday family fun exquisite acts from australia & the World: neil murray the maes Joe geia grace barbe afro-kreol grassy strings (india) natty d (solomons) Will pound & Jen butterWorth (uk) kerryn fields khristian miZZi apolline stephen taberner and many more free program With: african drumming choirs street acts magicians community bands = fun for all!
Principal Partner
don’t Wait - tickets & camping on sale noW! cresfest.com.au
After 30 years together, Kevin Quick and Ivy Owen have said “I do”, marrying in Creswick on February 5. The pair met in 1994 and spent the next 14 years together travelling around Australia.
However Ivy thought she was still married to her first husband and would need a divorce to marry Kevin. After years of not knowing, in 2024, she found out her first husband had died in 1986. She was free to remarry and the idea became a reality. The wedding was held at Creswick Health’s nursing home with Ivy, aged 91 to Kevin’s 83 years, joking she was a cradle snatcher. The event was planned by staff at Creswick Health who went to town ensuring the aged care facility was transformed into a wonderful wedding venue. The ceremony was presided over by Ballarat civil celebrant Tania Gunn. “It brought tears to my eyes because there was so much love for Ivy and Kevin. They are the most senior couple I have married and are just as in love as the younger couples I’ve married.” Read the full story at www.tlnews.com.au -
A300 to Mt Franklin 4km to Castlemaine 30km to Bendigo 68km
Jacksons Lookout Tower
SPRINGS
C316 to Glenlyon 9km to Malmsbury 27km to Kyneton 31km
to Malmsbury 27km to Kyneton 31km
View Hill Rd
Rosella
Smith Barkas
Parker
Jamieson Trewhella
Little
Vincent Nth
Langdon
HEPBURN
Daylesford Malmsbury
Barkas
Vincent Nth
Rosella Ln
C317 to Trentham 25km to Woodend 45km to Melbourne 113km via Calder Fwy
The Little Local - thelittlelocal.com.au
Barkas
Parker Trewhella
Frazer
Grenville
Stanhope
Stanley
Queensberry
Orford Daly
Camp
Duke
Vincent
Bridport
Harts Ln
Langdon Crt
Millar
West
Perrins
Fulcher
Tierneys Ln
Grenville
Lake Road
A300 to Blampied 8km to Newlyn 15km to Creswick 24km to Clunes 41km to Ballarat 39km
C141 to Sailors Falls 3km to Ballan 30km to Melbourne 109km via Western Fwy
Jubilee
LAKE DAYLESFORD
Hoaths
C141