Timboon, Sea Lake, Talbot: 10 regional towns that just ooze community spirit
These regional towns and cities have proven they have what it takes to reinvent themselves when required, or to rally together in times of celebration and crisis. Here are 10 of our most vibrant communities.
THESE towns have plenty in their corner.
To be vibrant is to be full of energy and life, and many of our readers know that vibrancy can be found in many places in the country, from our regional cities to our smallest hamlets.
That energy and life can take many forms. It is not just that there may always be something happening, even though regional Australia boasts a huge array of cultural and sporting events.
It is also that people within these towns have come up with ways to make a positive contribution towards community life.
From towns that have reinvented themselves, to campaigns driven by the community, to communities that rallied together in times of celebration and crisis, these are 10 of Victoria’s most vibrant communities.
TIMBOON, VIC
THE small town in Victoria’s southwest — population about 1200 — has reinvented itself as a foodie destination to capitalise on the tourism of the nearby Great Ocean Road.
The 12 Apostles Food Artisans — including Schulz Organic Dairy, Timboon Fine Ice Cream and Timboon Railway Shed Distillery — aims to draw people inland to explore the best of Timboon’s local produce and hospitality.
“If people took a day trip to us, there needed to be something in that shop for everyone in the car, because we are off the beaten track,” says Tim Marwood of the time he owned the distillery. He is also owner of Timboon Fine Ice Cream.
“We were stocking local producers’ products anyway, and the visitor information centre was giving out a rough gourmet route map. I thought surely we can improve on this, consolidate the operators and make an organisation of it.”
“Sure, it’s about sharing customers – but it’s more than that ... It’s also a moral support mechanism.”
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MIRBOO NORTH, VIC
THE South Gippsland town of Mirboo North booms annually in February for its Italian Festa. The event has been running since 2016 — the same year the census placed the town’s population at 1700 people — and this year it celebrated its fifth festival. However the 2021 edition has been postponed due to coronavirus.
The popular drawcards are the food, art and craft stalls, as well as grape-stomping and spaghetti-eating competitions, flag throwers, tarantella folk dancing lessons, in addition to cooking demonstrations.
“We aim to be as authentic as possible, to celebrate Italian culture in Gippsland, our traditions and history,” says Rosie Romano, one of the authors of the Nonna’s Secret Recipe Book (of which there have now been two editions) released at the festival.
“It’s a beautiful family day where you can see four generations of a family come together.”
The town has also launched plans to build a new doctors clinic to keep its GPs in town long-term. The plans are being funded by the Mirboo North and District Community Foundation, which is reinvesting funds from the sale of its aged care facility, which was originally its bush nursing centre.
Foundation chairman Paul Pratt has paid tribute to the decisions made in the past that have put the foundation in its current position.
“Hopefully, in 100 years’ time, people will look back and say look what our grandparents did back then because it flows on for generations and we reap the benefits of what the generations before us have done.”
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SHEPPARTON, VIC
THE people of regional Victoria have proven time and again their ability to respond and band together in a crisis, and over the past decade they have been tested by floods, fires and droughts, especially.
But a once-in-100-year pandemic has revealed how much people were willing to do for each other, to keep their neighbours and communities safe.
The Shepparton community had already shown its capability to respond to help both those in need as well as its hospitality industry, struggling due to COVID-19 restrictions, with its Food Link program.
But when an virus outbreak hit the town last month, it prompted an inspiring response.
Thousands of people turned out in Shepparton testing centres following the outbreak linked to the Chadstone shopping centre cluster. People turned up at testing centres at dawn and waited in line for hours, and in some instances testing centres were overwhelmed by demand that within hours of opening they had reached their limit. That was on top of the hundreds of people who went into isolation. In the end, only three positive cases were detected.
On October 28, the day regional Victoria was declared free of any known coronavirus cases, Victoria’s testing chief Jeroen Weimar said 46,810 regional Victorians had been tested over the previous two weeks, up 48 per cent on the previous two-week period.
Mr Weimar was full of praise for regional Victoria’s ongoing response in getting tested.
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TALBOT, VIC
TWENTY years ago, London House in Talbot was little more than a shell, part of an ageing and decrepit block of gold rush-era buildings going to ruin.
But instead of being demolished, the townspeople saw an opportunity and seized it. Now, London House is home to the renowned Talbot Provedore, a three-time winner of Golden Plate winner in its category.
Alan Denham was among the key group of locals who organised and ran the renovation project, becoming project manager. On top of the grants, he said the locals provided “in-kind labour”.
They also established a work-for-the-dole project at the site.
“We just had a great mix of people at that time who worked together to make it happen,” says Alan.
The town of less than 400 people would also come alive on the third Sunday of the month for the farmers’ market, however, these have been in “hibernation” due to coronavirus.
SEA LAKE, VIC
A BOOM in visitors to nearby Lake Tyrrell, Victoria’s largest salt lake, helped turned this Mallee town into a tourism hotspot.
At a four-hour drive from Melbourne, Sea Lake enjoyed a new surge in tourism in recent years from visitors — mainly from China — to visit the nearby lake.
Then there is the work the community undertook to keep its local watering hole open. A cooperative was formed after locals pooled the funds to buy, restore, re-open and run the local pub.
The spirit of shared ownership already existed in Sea Lake, with locals banding together to take over the town’s grocery shop and hardware store.
Once home of the annual Mallee Rally, Sea Lake also boasts incredible silo art, celebrating the Boorong People and their Indigenous culture and astronomy.
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TRUNDLE, NSW
MAMMA Mia, welcome to Trundle.
Its neighbour Parkes may be home to the famous Elvis Festival, but about 50km down the road, on the first Saturday in May (in normal years) Trundle plays host to the ABBA Festival.
It is also host of the National Bush Cook Championships, part of the Trundle Bush Tucker Day.
The town — which has less than 700 people — has battled due to the drought, so the roughly 2000 visitors that the bush cook championship attracts are particularly welcome. Each year the bush tucker day donates profits to local charities.
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YACKANDANDAH, VIC
HERE is another town that, while only populated by about 1800 people, aims high with its ideas.
Yackandandah is not only home to an annual folk festival, but also a community working towards being energy sustainable.
Totally Renewable Yackandandah, a volunteer run community group, formed in 2014 with the aim of powering the town with 100 per cent renewable energy and “achieving energy sovereignty by 2022”, according to its website.
The town won the sustainable and resilient communities award at the Banksia Sustainability Awards in 2017.
“We’re not experts in energy, all we’re doing is working alongside a whole community,” said TRY’s Matthew Charles-Jones at the time.
“This isn’t about the activity of a handful of people or TRY, it’s the enterprise of a whole town.”
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TAMBO, QLD
THIS community found a new way to make the most of its wool industry — the humble teddy bear.
The Tambo Teddies have come to symbolise the hope, hard work and the rejuvenation of a small outback Queensland town.
The business started in 1993 by three Tambo women, who at the time were taking part in a government initiative to bolster drought-hit outback Queensland towns, including sheep farms hit by the wool crash.
“I don’t think when teddies first started being made here — with the aim of helping the town’s economy — that many people believed 27 years later we’d still be making bears in the outback,” says Alison Shaw, a former wool classer who has co-owned the business since 2014.
Since then, Tambo Teddies have been gifted to Premiers, VIPs and even royalty and the business has expanded into Toowoomba.
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NHILL, VIC
NHILL in Victoria’s far northwest has thrown its arms open to hundreds of Asian refugees.
The first Karen man arrived in Nhill in 2010 to work at the town’s Luv-a-Duck factory.
Since then Karen people have been drawn to the area.
At 35 Victoria St in Nhill is the retail store and workshop Paw Po. The program, an initiative of the Nhill Learning Centre, involves Karen women sewing and selling their products.
While the arrival of the Karen to Nhill has been described as an economic boost to the town, Paw Po has also helped the women involved to develop social connections, gain more English, as well as gain creativity and confidence.
NLC executive officer Annette Creek says that this year in response to the pandemic they started making face masks instead, and have made close to 3000.
“It also gave us a chance to also grow our floristry business which has boomed since COVID because people couldn’t visit each other so they’re much keener to send flowers,” Annette says.
The Nhill community also managed to raise $300,000 over two years so its Aviation Heritage Centre could purchase a restored Australian World War II military training aircraft, a Wirraway. The official handover of the Wirraway was described as symbolic of the community’s support for the centre and more broadly the town’s aviation history.
Nhill, which is home to about 1700 people, is also home to the Australian Pinball Machine Museum.
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DONALD, VIC
IT IS the home of one of our most beloved biscuits, but also an idea born out of a need to attract new jobs to the town.
“In the early 1990s the town’s meatworks closed and the railways left and about 200 jobs were lost,” local businessman Graeme Harris said.
“If the town was going to survive we needed those jobs back, but we realised we were more likely to achieve that by attracting a number of smaller industries rather than relying on a single, large employer.”
The story goes that local entrepreneurs came up with a plan to identify possible industries that could tap into the huge surrounding agriculture sector and nearby infrastructure. That’s how Kookas Country Cookies was born, and its successful formula was used to establish Australian Eatwell, one of the town’s other key employers
Then there is the local football club, which took over the lease for the local caravan park, while it also leases out its own “footy farm”.
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