Clay, The Wine Star
Clay, The Wine Star

It’s doubtful a dose of the flu would figure in too many business plans, but for Clay Watson, the flu helped launch his business. Bed-ridden in his Daylesford cottage one weekend, Clay was working on the website for a vague idea he’d been playing around with about starting a company specialising in bespoke tours of local wineries. In his delirium, Clay inadvertently published the website. The next day, he started getting enquiries. When his wife Renai asked him what he’d done, Clay replied: “We’ve just started Daylesford Wine Tours, babe – we’d better buy a bus”.

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Clean Lines
Clean Lines

How does it feel to live as though you are at one with nature? The answer might be nestled high on Wombat Hill in Daylesford; Hardwood House. The country home represents a sanguine escape that captures the mood of the respective culture through design that is drenched in history.

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A Feast Fit For Kings & Queens
A Feast Fit For Kings & Queens

In The Importance of Being Earnest, Oscar Wilde writes, “I hate people who are not serious about meals. It is so shallow of them.” In another time, Leah Johnston would circle Wilde’s orbit, draped in lace Victorian dress with Irezumi tattoos blossoming up her back. “My small farm is surrounded by various gum trees; I like to bring our local fauna into the grazing tables to really showcase the land element.” At Musk Farm, Leah glides around a table with leaves and owers that blossom on the ends of an opulent feasting table. A decadent assortment of soft cheeses dripping with honey, caramelized crackers and buttery pâté ow from the centre. She's launching her new catering business, Daylesford Grazing. As people pass by the room, littered with Renaissance paintings and French curtains, they quickly snap a photo.

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Living Free
Living Free

Meg Ulman zips past my car on a bicycle with her Jack Russell, Zero, in the front basket and her son, Woody (Blackwood), on the back seat. “We've been car-free for 10 years. And the first day we got Zero, he was 11 weeks old and jumped straight into the basket.”

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LOST Recipe
LOST Recipe

The Farmers Arms Hotel Daylesford is not your average pub. It boasts a truly seasonal menu, focusing on highlighting local and in-season produce. We deliver dishes that re ect the best of the region, sourcing from local organic farms and produce growers to ensure not only sustainable and tasty dishes, but also generous and deliciously flavoured meals.

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Reasons To Get Lost in December
Reasons To Get Lost in December

Come along and enjoy a wee bit of Scotland in the picturesque tourist town of Daylesford, Victoria. The Daylesford Highland Gathering is held annually on the 1st Saturday of December and is the rst gathering of the season.

Our charming Gathering includes a captivating Street March in the Main Street of Daylesford and thena full days Drumming, Piping and Dancing at the picturesque Victoria Park, located at the southern entrance of Daylesford. The end of the day is heralded spectacularly with the Massed Bands, which is an experience not to be missed!

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LOST News - December
LOST News - December

Wait... is that the month!? Cue Maria Carey and Michael Buble, it’s time to get festive. What better time than the twelfth month to reminisce about the year gone by. It’s been a big year for Lost Magazine. So many amazing stories have been explored and presented. It is always worth saying how proud and lucky we are to be here.

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Breaking Bread
Breaking Bread

It might come as a surprise to learn that Alla Wolf-Tasker, the one-woman revolution who created Daylesford’s iconic Lake House out of a weedy paddock more than 30 years ago, has anything left on her to-do list.

But despite running the lauded restaurant along with its boutique accommodation and spa, its sibling Wombat Hill House café and being an all-round champion of central Victoria - with the Order of Australia to prove it - Wolf-Tasker still longed for the authenticity of her own freshly-baked bread.

“It was a dream of mine to offer a larger variety of good bread to our guests at Lake House but our kitchens were operating to capacity,” she says. “With the Bake House we’ll be able to produce slow-fermented sourdough breads as well as beautifully laminated croissants, viennoiserie, donuts, breakfast buns and all sorts of deliciousness.”

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The Chai's The Limit
The Chai's The Limit

When Nina Isabella had her first taste of chai 20 years ago she knew it was good – but she also knew she could make it better.

“A friend made it for me the traditional way: he added the tea and spices to the pot, brought it to the boil, added milk and let it simmer,” says the founder of Atelier Botanica. “The spices were amazing. I loved the drink but the tea after that process was completely destroyed.”

Back then it was impossible to find a commercial version of the chai travellers tended to discover for the first time on their backpacking adventures in India. The appeal of the warming spices such as cardamom, cinnamon and cloves in a silken, milky warm tea was hard to deny, though - so Isabella set out on her own journey, experimenting with her own blends and quantities until she found the perfect recipe. What began as a small cottage industry (“basically I was peddling it in small packets to my girlfriends”) eventually turned into Atelier Botanica and a seven-strong range of all-organic artisan products.

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The Divine Maggies
The Divine Maggies

In Andrew and Trevor’s property “Maggies at Trentham,” what reads like history on the outside blossoms with imagination within. The regal Victorian home neighbours St Mary Magdalen Catholic Parish Church and was dedicated to the local priest by the archbishop of Melbourne in 1906. Three years ago, the property was metamorphosed by interior designers Andrew Danckert and Trevor Salmon - the result has blossomed into a carnival of wonder.

Built in the late 19th century, Maggies was originally commissioned over one hundred years ago for the local parish Priest, who serviced not only Trentham, but also Kyneton and the surrounds. These days, the interior offers accommodation for up to eight guests in four bedrooms that dissolve the stately posture of faith with a quirky aesthetic that foregrounds fun.

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Practice Makes Peace
Practice Makes Peace

The Sanskrit noun yoga is derived from the term yuj, meaning to attach, join, harness or yoke. The spiritual resonance of the word yoga can be traced to Epic Sanskrit with the aim of uniting the human spirit with the Divine. For Adrian, yoga has helped strike his inner tranquility while simultaneously uniting a community of locals through curated posture and rhythmic breath work.

 For Adrian, yoga was first and foremost about healing. “My family, genetically, has the tendency to suffer from hypertension and high blood pressure. So when I was about to hit my thirties I was really looking for something to manage it without medication.yoga seemed to be the key,” explains Adrian, with the enthusiasm of a new found discovery.

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Heavy Roots
Heavy Roots

On a sunny hill in Musk, a red Fiat idles beside the bucolic home of a larrikin raconteur and legendary winemaker, Graeme Leith—the founder of Passing Clouds winery. “I’m fascinated, every time, to see what this vintage will bring out.” Graeme’s backdrop is a painterly scene of rolling hills and vines.

 “Every batch is fascinating. Every year is fascinating. The most surprising was picked in 1997. As I approach the end of my life, it’s interesting to think about how many things come back; a particular vintage or the songs that girls used to sing when they were skipping.”

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When all the Good Stuff Happens

Out on the high seas, sailors would tattoo swallows on their hands if a shipmate drowned - so the swallows could fly the dead sailor’s soul to heaven. “The swallow tattoo, that’s my brother. Paul died when he was 43,” explains David Bromley, one of Australia’s most celebrated artists. “One of the first memories in my life is my brother toying with a spark plug. I was never that sophisticated.”

 In May, Bromley launched his latest venture on East street in Daylesford; Boon Bromley - a furniture collaboration with Hans Boon, a fellow Dutchman and “old-school mate.”  The result is a fusion of Bromley’s firework mind - a kaleidoscopic ode to youthful wonder, with Hans Boon’s refined European craftsmanship. But for Bromley, the business is something of an unrealised dream. 

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Robin's Hood

Over a glass of chenin blanc, local architect Robin Larsen lyrically draws me in. “Architecture, well they say it’s frozen music,” suggests Robin, shy and eloquent.

 His partner JoAnne Stephenson laughs with the charm of Diane Keaton from early Woody Allen films. As a board member for the Melbourne Chamber Orchestra, she was winding down from their recent tour of Daylesford. “This is the seventh or eighth year they’ve toured Daylesford,” she tells me, before spilling secrets about their plans in Daylesford next year.

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A Taste of Home

 Kathryn Russack cooks with the practised skill of decades in the kitchen and the flair of someone born to the job. Watching her in the kitchen at Colenso, her European-leaning restaurant on Kyneton’s High Street, is a masterclass in deftness and control. And deliciousness.

 “Handmade modern” is the way she describes her food as she hands over a plate of pea fritters with a thick dollop pf crème fraiche bejewelled with salmon roe. “Very ingredient based; I’ve got it down to how many trips I have to make to the plate. I never jump the shark.”

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Born to Brew

Woodend’s Holgate Brewhouse is celebrating Oktoberfest with a sneak preview of its new brewery and tasting room. 

If you’ve been to Woodend, you’ve seen – and without a doubt admired - the Holgate Brewhouse.

The imposing two-storey red-brick Victorian hotel is the de facto welcoming committee when you arrive in town off the highway from Melbourne. Even if you’ve just planning to drive past, the sight of people kicking back with a beer at the outside tables is enough to make anyone find room their itinerary for a quick stop.

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