Chiltern Journal

Field notes from our kitchen

Seasonal stories, local history, and behind-the-counter notes from Chiltern Bakery & Cafe.

All Behind the scenes Craft Food History Press Seasonal Travel

A person in blue gloves kneels over loose brown soil, pressing a young tomato seedling into the ground.

12 Oct 20263 min read

Tomatoes by Cup Day: Spring Planting Around Chiltern

Plenty of Victorian gardeners still wait for Melbourne Cup Day to plant their tomatoes. Around Chiltern the reason is frost, and the rule bends a little.

Seasonal Food

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A single-storey red brick house with a corrugated iron roof, two tall chimneys and a front verandah, with garden plants in the foreground and a blue sky behind.

5 Oct 20263 min read

Lake Anderson, the Gold Mine That Became Chiltern's Lake

Nobody dug Lake Anderson as a lake. It is what was left when the ground over an old gold mine sank, and the town has made good use of it since.

History Travel

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A yellow donkey orchid flower with dark purple-brown markings and mottled red-brown blotches on its lower petals, photographed close against a dark green background, with unopened buds visible on the same stem.

28 Sept 20264 min read

Orchid Season in Chiltern's Ironbark Forest

For a few weeks each spring the forest floor outside town does something the rest of the year gives no warning of, and most of it is orchids.

Seasonal Travel

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The cream and red brick facade of the Chiltern Athenaeum, a small single storey heritage building with an arched doorway and a raised pediment reading Chiltern Athenaeum, on a quiet street.

21 Sept 20264 min read

The Shepherd Who Painted Chiltern on Gum Leaves

A shepherd on the Eldorado run had no paper or canvas, so he painted on gum leaves instead, and more than a century on his work still hangs in Chiltern.

History Craft

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Three shearers bent over sheep on the timber board of an Australian shearing shed, pale blue pen doors behind them and loose wool scattered across the floor.

14 Sept 20265 min read

Shearing season, and the shed Tom Roberts painted

Spring is when the wool comes off across the north-east. In 1888 a painter carried his canvas into a shed over the river and made the picture everybody knows.

Seasonal History

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A quiet country street with a long single storey red brick building under a timber post verandah, two brick chimneys along its roof, and older shopfronts further down past a stop sign.

7 Sept 20264 min read

Dow's Pharmacy, Chiltern: the shop left as it was

A pharmacy has stood on Conness Street since 1859. When Dow's shut its doors in 1969 the stock stayed on the shelves, and it is all still in there.

History Travel

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A regent honeyeater perched on a thin branch, black head and back with pale scalloped markings down the breast, bright yellow edging on the wing and tail, and a small identification band on one leg.

31 Aug 20265 min read

Counting regent honeyeaters in the Chiltern ironbark

The forest at the edge of town looks like nothing much. It holds one of the rarest birds in the country, and twice a year people go out and count them.

Seasonal Travel

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A row of nineteenth century shopfronts along a country main street, a newsagent with painted newspaper signs across its verandah, and drapers and emporium signage further down the row under a clear blue sky.

24 Aug 20265 min read

When Disney turned Chiltern into a town called Barambogie

In 1974 a Disney crew gravelled Chiltern's main street, took the signs down and filmed the town as a place called Barambogie. What changed, and what stayed.

History Travel

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Bare grapevines trained along wire trellises in a dormant vineyard, rows running back to a distant tree line under a clear blue sky, with yellow wildflowers growing between the vines.

17 Aug 20266 min read

Budburst season in Rutherglen's old vineyards

Out toward Rutherglen the old vines are waking up. What budburst looks like, why it happens in a set order, and the frost that still has to be watched for.

Seasonal Travel

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