Goodbye Kyneton

Goodbye house.

 

Goodbye school.

Country Summer

Weekend report

This weekend: a sultry Friday night promising Summer, then a cold, drizzling Saturday spent in the library marking. “The Housemaid” on Lygon Street. An Indonesian festival in Federation Square. No train services, so I had to get the bus.Eating fried rice out of a coconut at “Jalan Alor” and cream cakes at Maxim’s in Chinatown. Sitting in the sunshine on Sunday atop the Carlton hotel in the kitschy Hawaiian themed palm garden on fuschia pink chairs drinking cider, and then running along my jogging path through the trees and the white wildflowers back in Kyneton.

Not a bad one after all

Kennel Club

Neighborhood drug den

This is the building, on my town’s main street which was recently raided by police, who found a meth lab. Whoever would have guessed? It looks so wholesome doesn’t it?

Off!

K-town hanami

Parade!

The town’s annual parade was this morning. I got woken up by the goddamned bagpipes. The big city in cynic in me was smirking at the hokiness of it, but at the same time I found it quite heartwarming to know its there. Every year the town chooses a “Daffodil King” and “Daffodil Queen” – usually a retired couple - to lead the parade (which is daffodil-themed, this being the town’s chosen emblem). This year they were riding in a stage coach. A childrens petting zoo was set up outside the Mechanics Institute. (Mechanics Institutes were a kind of library/cultural and leisure facility set up in the nineteenth century to help “elevate” the working classes”. Every town had one.) There were some turkeys – not that common in Australia since we don’t have Thanksgiving and rarely eat them at Christmas. Random hippies The goddamned bagpipes By far the highlight of the parade was the lion dancing and drumming, and the small imperial dragon brought down from Bendigo. Interestingly, the lion dancers were all Caucasian! Old cars – this bit went on forever Finally, the tractors and carts parade.

Ferret Racing Festival – all washed out

Last year I was devastated to miss the ferret races, a bizarre highpoint in the town’s calendar. I made sure to catch the event this year. Unfortunately though, the event was being held in the outdoors. The sweet-smelling weasels were to race through lengths of piping by the town’s war memorial – in the most torrential rain the area has seen in years. My mum always told me that ferrets were vile, vicious creatures (her uncle had kept one) but I was struck by how cute they were and toyed with the idea of getting one…until I saw a sign saying “keep your fingers out of the cage”. And I remembered that their near relations, the civet cat, had started the SARS epidemic.

Spring is sprung

Maybe I’m a little bit delusional, but this weekend I felt the first blush of Spring. It was only 12 degrees on Saturday but the air – somehow – felt balmy and inviting. I’m sure there will be plenty more cold mornings to come, but the tide has started to turn. In K-ton, the bright yellow daffodils are in bloom in gardens and along the streets. Warmer weather is on the way.

I heart K Y

Kyneton continues to improve. After last week’s piece on the incredible new “Stockrooms” retail/gallery space, I have discovered two other really cool places on Piper Street. How could I have missed them?

Dhaba at the Mill is a great Indian restaurant, hidden away behind solid-looking wooden doors in the old stone mill building. The rough beams and walls have been left, supplemented by grocery-like shelves of Indian spices, sacks of rice and Hindi language posters. And the food – which has been enthusiastically reviewed by the Times of India no less! – is superb. I had calamari rings with a fresh mint and oil sauce. Delicious.

The chef, apparently, emigrated from India, via an acclaimed restaurant in San Francisco, to Kyneton.

Just down the street, through another not-particularly-inviting doorway is a brief staircase leading to a pair of charming new shops; a vintage homewares store with a back window looking out over the town’s chimneys to the rolling green meadows beyond, and “Long Story Short”, a used book and vinyl store! I had no idea! It is here that I found this uber cute (and cheeky) “I  heart K Y ” badges, and bought a handful!

Country vs city

VS

Cool Kyneton

When I tell people in Melbourne that I live in Kyneton, they often respond enthusiastically: isn’t its quaint up there? They’ve read all about it in the weekend paper lifestyle supplements. Aren’t there great restaurants? And cute country pubs, and antique stores?

I usually smile weakly. It seems so different from the Kyneton I know, a sometimes grim little town beset with boredom and amphetamines use.  But this weekend something happened that caused me to to change my mind, and wonder if they were right after all. Maybe it is Kyneton’s destiny to become a rural centre of fine living, arts, crafts and wellmade food?

Because this weekend I visited the newly opened Stockroom – an arts and retail complex in an old butter factory on the historic Piper Street strip – and I was blown away.

The old industrial space has been gutted to create a flowing open-plan shop with a “forest” of avant-garde clothes hanging from gumtree branches. There is a plywood cubbyhouse with changing rooms. Funky light fittings, rough exposed walls and low benches fill the rest of the space, displaying woodcrafts, handmade jewellery and toys, and graphic design items. Attached are working artists’ studios and an impressive little gallery, while downstairs in a sunken area ( a former garage) plush vintage couches gather around a parked van to form a cozy cafe (and soon-to-be bar). The whole complex is imbued with a sense of inner-city hipness that astonishes. This would be one of the coolest shops in Melbourne – let alone Kyneton!

Stockroom now joins a small, but steadily growing, list of cool little places in Kyneton. Just up the street there is Kabinett, an interiors store selling an odd (and pricy, naturally) assortment of old medical beakers, faded maps, stuffed eagles and former industrial furniture and specializing in posters in the Cyrillic alphabet.

Up from that again is the award-winning and much-admired organic gourmet pizza place Pizza Verde, and there is a new “Turkish tapas” joint across the street.

My favourite Kyneton cafe, the charming Inner Biscuit is another minute away, where I stop by every week for coffee and baked eggs with peas and chorizo, or ham and cheese toasties with organic coffee and to read the papers.

Across the street from here is the famers fruit market with its gelato bar, and just a block or so up is the Royal George Hotel – the place city dwellers usually think of when they think of fine Kyneton dining. I have never eaten there (it is currently advertising a $220 per head ‘truffles evening’), but I decided somewhere along the line that I would make it my “goodbye dinner” when I go – and that won’t be too long now.

And around the corner from this little bluestone strip with its ambling weekend crowds and thirtysomething professionals in fashionable knits, the “Piper Street vibe” has spilled over on to Kyneton’s main street at Monsieur Pierre‘s tiny and charming French-styled gourmet deli.

And to think: almost all of these places have opened while I have been in town, in the last year. Suddenly, I can sense the excitement about Kyneton, and feel almost sad to be on my way out. I wonder, if I come back in five years, what will it be like? I was lucky to be here at this time, to see a town on the cusp, changing before my eyes. It is just odd that I almost didn’t notice!

Read more in this article from “the Age”: Kyneton calling

Sunday morning in the country

K-ton winter morning

Drive in the country

The gayest little town in Oz

I took a trip, on a grey wintry day, to the nearby spa town of Daylesford. These were my impressions:

rainbow flags scrambled tofu shiatsu tarot hydroptherapy shop selling 1950s collectibles next to palm reader clothing for dogs photo exhibition about Balinese drag queens (!!) convent turned into a gallery of crass art ceramic figurines leather handbags sourdough organic made by plain Indians aromatherapy gaudy jewellery made from alpaca live jazz tapas chunky knitwear expensively dressed children lesbian giftstore windchimes breastfeeding welcome here wedding receptions red leather a coke costs 4.80

To sum up: upwardly mobile tack.

Yuck.