Meet the makers in Daylesford
22 Jun 2018
This Victorian region is full of artisans who are making incredible food, wine and experiences to draw visitors up to the mountains.
Natasha Morgan is a landscape architect and a maker who has turned her rural property at Spargo Creek in northern Victoria into a hub of creativity called Oak and Monkey Puzzle that is named after the old trees that surround the house.
Oak and Monkey Puzzle offers workshops from international natural cheese making to classes in dry stone walling. The property sits on the edge of Wombat State Forest and is in thrall to the seasons from the misty winters to the summers bursting with fresh produce from the five-acre garden.
“I am blown away by how much is going on in this region. There are so many makers and artisans doing their thing in their little corner of the world,” says Morgan.
Morgan turns that produce into preserves and cordials like Hedgerow Hawthorn Flower and Wild Blackberry that find their way into locavore cocktail at Daylesford’s Belvedere Social. The white wooden house is an exercise in simplicity and the workshops, operating now for just on two years, are incredibly popular. “We offer a day in the country where you make great stuff, meet someone interesting – and they have to be extraordinary in what they do – and you have a beautiful shared lunch which is all local produce,” she says.
Spargo Creek is right outside of Daylesford, an area best known as spa country, a place for a romantic getaway or couples weekend, but the region has also become a magnet for people who are looking for a place to create, whether it is flower arranging, curing meats or reviving a century-old oven to make bread.
My next stop is Redbeard Historic Bakery, down a small side lane off the main street of Trentham. Inside this modest corrugated iron shed owner John Reid has revived a wood-fired Scotch oven first used in 1891. From the oven he cranks out sourdough, traditional bread made with a wild yeast leaven. The café itself is simply dressed with a 100-year-old baker’s trough as the main feature by the same engineers who made the historic oven. In the café the bread is the star ingredient dressed with local cheeses and some of the Istra Smallgoods I now have in the car – I opt for a doorstop-sized Ruben with pastrami, sauerkraut and Swiss cheese.
My accommodation for the evening is The Cottage at Bolobek, an historic Macedon Ranges property originally owned by Oswald Syme son of The Age founder David Syme. Formerly the station hand’s residence, the wooden cottage is simply dressed with polished wood floors and old maps of Australia on the walls; there is an open fire and private walled garden making your biggest decision where you want to chill out. Before I decide I opt for a sunset stroll through the famous gardens opposite the cottage.
The Bolobek fridge is packed with local bacon and eggs and the following morning I make a country fry-up before I depart.
My last stop is in Keilor on the outskirts of Melbourne at the Arundel Farm Estate winery in the Sunbury wine region, one of the most interesting wine regions you have never heard of. This wine area flies well under the radar, an analogy driven home by the low-flying planes in the sky from Melbourne airport just a few minutes away; you could be in a hire car and wine tasting here before most of your fellow travellers have even set foot in an airport cab.
Arundel Farm Estate concentrates on shiraz and viognier, earthy, peppery reds that match perfectly with their rustic Italian menu inspired by the Abruzzo region of Italy; dishes might include housemade gnocchi with a six-hour Abruzzese ragu or a wood-fired pizza in the sundrenched restaurant that is packed to the gills on a Sunday. The estate also has a history as a horse stud and they still offer agistment on the fields not used for growing grapes – fly in and have a taste.
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