By Carol Altmann

[dropcap style=”font-size: 60px; color: #A02F2F;”] I[/dropcap]t is with a hint of shame that I must admit that despite the Cape Nelson lighthouse being “just down the road” for 131 years, I have never got around to visiting it.

“You are not alone,” Rob Hunt says by phone, when I confess my failing.

Rob, who together with his wife, Margaret, leases and manages the Cape Nelson lighthouse precinct which includes unique accommodation, a cafe and the lighthouse itself, says most of their visitors come from well beyond south-west Victoria.

“We get a lot of international guests, especially from Europe, China…who are looking for something different and something remote,” he says.

If people are prepared to travel tens of thousands of kilometres to see a place that is right on our doorstep, we thought it about time Bluestone drove a mere 90km from Warrnambool to just south of Portland and checked out the historic landmark in a spectacular landscape.

In the process, we uncovered the perfect day trip.

[dropcap style=”font-size: 60px; color: #A02F2F;”] P[/dropcap]ortland locals Grant and Carmel Wallace, together with son, James, have kindly agreed to act as our guides, which is extremely helpful because Grant is one of several tour guides at the lighthouse, so he really knows his stuff.

We start the day with what should have been an invigorating 3km, circular walk on the way to the lighthouse, the Sea Cliff Nature Walk, but there is so much to enjoy on the walk that it is impossible not to stop, look, smell and even taste, if the bush tucker berries happen to be out.

Best of all, the easy walk reaches its halfway point on a rocky outcrop that offers spectacular views across to Cape Bridgewater and makes you re-appreciate – all over again – the wild coastline that so defines where we live.

According to the Portland Tourism Association, this lovely walk was created in 1979 by Portland High School students, parents and teachers as the first bit of what is now the 250km Great South West Walk. It is well sign-posted off the Cape Nelson Road and you can download the Parks Victoria walking notes here.

Of course after a walk, comes lunch.

[dropcap style=”font-size: 60px; color: #A02F2F;”] T[/dropcap]he Wallaces whisk us off down the road to the lighthouse for lunch at Isabella’s, the beautifully refurbished bluestone cafe that was originally a stables and still has some bluestone flagstone flooring.

The cafe was the first thing to be revamped when Rob and Margaret took over the complex in 2008. They added a commercial kitchen, reglazed the front and employed former thespian, Steve Campbell, to run the place.

Steve, who still has the pliable face of an actor, adds a touch of style from the moment you step in the door, but this is not a stuffy, over-priced cafe. Instead it is cosy, affordable and offers great food including fish and chips (fresh flathead tails) to a gourmet, home-made chicken pie, to lamb kofta. (No wonder it averages almost five stars on trip advisor.)

Fed and walked, we make one final, quick detour before the lighthouse to look inside the cottage accommodation.

The side-by-side cottages were originally built for the assistant lighthouse keepers but, over the years, as Rob describes it, were “bastardised” into three units. As part of a painstaking restoration that finished in 2010, walls that had been pulled down were replaced. Fireplaces that had been closed off were reopened.

“We ended up doing a renovation in reverse: not fixing it, but taking it back to what it was,” Rob says.

The Hunts are now restoring the lighthouse keeper’s home for similar, boutique, unique accommodation.

[dropcap style=”font-size: 60px; color: #A02F2F;”] A[/dropcap]nd so, to the lighthouse: the 32-metre tall, whitewashed wonder that has been safely guiding ships to the shore since 1884 and is still fully operational.

In this respect, it is a rare treat to be able to spiral your way into a working lighthouse, as most of those open to the public in Victoria have been decommissioned.

Whenever I am near a lighthouse, I always suffer from a mix of slight vertigo, awe and an inexplicable desire to quote passages from Moby Dick (if I knew any) and today is no different.

The lighthouse is in stunning condition, as solid as the day it was first built, with freshly painted railings and shining brass air vents and a visually arresting staircase that winds us up, up, up – like climbing the inside of a nautilus shell – until we pop into the light room.

Grant points out the globe that illuminates the world, well, at least our corner of it, and I won’t spoil that surprise…

He then heaves open an Alice-in-Wonderland-style door and we duck our heads, pass through, and step out.

Gasp.

Wow.

[box]The Cape Nelson Lighthouse precinct tours operate daily at 11am and 2pm, fees apply. Isabella’s is open seven days, from 10am-4pm, serving coffee, cake and lunch. Breakfast is also available from 10am on weekends. Licensed. For more information on the Cape Nelson Lighthouse precinct and bookings, visit the website here. [/box]

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By Carol Altmann

[dropcap style=”font-size: 60px; color: #512D97;”]T[/dropcap]he colour purple has always been linked to royalty, so it is the perfect decor choice for a new family-run cafe that is fast becoming the king of sweet treats in Dunkeld.

Everything from the purple floor to the purple coffee cups, napkins, chairs and tongs gives an indication that Dunkeld Delights is a place with a sense of fun and that’s exactly what to expect when you drop in to what is a stylishly converted shed next to the Phillips family home in Williams St.

The Phillips family are an extraordinary group.

Not only do they get along well enough to share a house – with three of the four children having moved away and since returned – but they now all share in the family business of baking and making delicious goodies.

Until recently, Dunkeld Delights had been a regular on the local market scene, with mother, Chris, and daughter, Shantelle, making a name for themselves over the past eight years through the homestyle quality of the treats they produced in their home kitchen.

“We had the idea for a long time to do something like this (a cafe), but it was only last year that all of the pieces started to come together,” Shantelle explains.

[dropcap style=”font-size: 60px; color: #512D97;”] O [/dropcap]ne of those pieces was the popularity of the Dunkeld Delights cookies and cakes at Cafe 109, also in Dunkeld, where Shantelle was working at the time and which stocked her cakes and slices.

“I started to think that maybe it was finally time to go out on our own and do our own cafe,” she said.

Another was the return home of sisters Aleesha and Tryleen (who is, as far as she knows, the only person named Tryleen in Australia), neither of whom were bakers, but who were prepared to learn.

Chris and Shantelle are the type of self-taught cooks who can make anything, so they quickly taught the pair the finer points of baking and each sister now has her own area of expertise (more about that in a moment).

The final piece of the puzzle was father, Gary, who had recently retired and was able to help out with the behind-the-scenes book-keeping and other business essentials.

There was only one sticking point.

“The shed that we hoped to use was absolutely full of junk – lawnmowers and all the usual stuff you find in a garage,” Chris recalls with a laugh.

The solution? Build another shed for all of the garage junk.

[dropcap style=”font-size: 60px; color: #512D97;”] E [/dropcap]arlier this year the front shed was converted into a commercial kitchen, shopfront and small cafe, with an outdoor dining area that overlooks the Phillips’ magnificent garden. The cafe opened for business in August and has not looked back.

Indeed there is already talk of expanding the premises to allow for more seating and the self-contained room that son/brother Jayson uses on visits home may have to be sacrificed for that one!

The menu has also expanded to include a range of savoury items, including what might possibly be the best chicken-and-mushroom pie I have ever tasted.

“We all have our areas of expertise now,” says Chris, while identifying herself as the maker of the pie.

“Shantelle is the slice person, I am the big cakes and pies girl, Tryleen is biscuits and Aleesha makes a carrot cake to die for,” she laughs.

And who decided on the purple floor?

“It was meant to be grey and white, but when I saw it, I thought, boy that looks boring, and I kept looking at the purple thinking, ‘hmmmm,” Chris says.

“It is all a bit of fun and that’s how I wanted it. I want my kids to go to work every day and say, I am going to have the greatest day.”

Judging by the amount of laughter and happy banter during our visit, the purple is definitely working.

[box]Dunkeld Delights is one of four cafes now operating in Dunkeld and can be found at 35 Williams St, off Victoria Valley Rd. Open 7 days from 9am-4pm. You can join them on Facebook here. The Discover Dunkeld Weekend is on from Oct 17-19: what a perfect time to visit the town. Full details here.[/box]

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[dropcap style=”color: #a5cecd;”] A [/dropcap]mid all the gloom of shops closing in Warrnambool, the city’s burgeoning cafe scene is stepping up to the plate to show how funky places can not only survive, but thrive.

The wonderfully named Day Kitty cafe is among the newcomers, having taken over the former – and famous – Flaherty’s Chocolate Shop building in Kepler St, right next door to the Capitol Cinema.

Since opening six months ago, the cafe with a striking black-and-white decor has carved out a niche market with its emphasis on organic that includes home-made, artisan milkshakes and icecreams, fresh-pressed juices, light meals, salads and hot drinks.

It is like a soda fountain, meets a coffee shop, meets a gourmet salad-and-juice bar – and it works.

[dropcap style=”color: #a5cecd;”] W [/dropcap]arrnambool sisters Victoria and Elizabeth Carey are behind the venture, although Elizabeth insists she is simply “helping out” Victoria, who created the dream and has pulled all of the pieces together.

Both are former scientists who, after 10 years in their respective fields (the sisters were born two years apart), decided they wanted to do something completely different with their lives.

Victoria worked in dairying manufacturing at Murray Goulburn, in Koroit, where she gained all of the experience necessary to break out into making artisan icecreams that would use only organic ingredients.

The waffle cones, which are hand-made by Elizabeth, use the egg whites leftover from the icecream.

The cafe’s icecream and milkshake bar harks back to the hey-day of Flaherty’s, who were known not only for their extraordinary array of chocolates – particularly at Easter – but for the entire Flaherty family each taking a turn at serving icecreams and milkshakes to cinema goers.

“I knew exactly the sort of cafe I wanted to have, and I knew it had to be here, in this building,” Victoria says.

“We have had different members of the Flaherty family drop in to see how it looks, and that has been really lovely,” she adds.

[dropcap style=”color: #a5cecd;”] B [/dropcap]efore joining her big sister at Day Kitty, Elizabeth specialised in the remediation of contaminated land so it is not surprising that she, too, has a strong commitment to sustainability.

“We try and recycle and reuse as much as we can. Our food scraps are composted and all of the cardboard is taken away and recycled,” she explains.

Even the cutlery and drinking straws are made from recycled bamboo – rather than plastic – although it did take a bit of trial and error to find the right straws.

“We started with some paper ones, but they fell apart before the drink was finished,” Victoria says, laughing.

Day Kitty is now “about 95 per cent organic”, according to Victoria, with a particular style of coffee bean proving to be the final, 5 per cent hurdle.

As for the name, it was chosen simply because it sounded good and is easy to remember.

“It was going to be Day Kitty-Night Owl, because we had planned to eventually open in the evening and offer cheese platters with a nice glass of wine,” Victoria says.

That may still happen, but for now the pair is happy to keep growing the business during daylight hours. The next chapter is about to unfold, with the hiring of a chef so that they can expand their lunch and breakfast menu.

“One day I would really like to also run an organic fruit and vege store, but that is a little further down the track,” Victoria says.

[box type=”bio”] Day Kitty, 53 Kepler St, Warrnambool is open Mon to Fri 8.30 to 5.30 and Sat 9-5. Ph: 5561 6921[/box]

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 Read about other great cafes in our area…

A cafe that feels like coming home: Tea Tree Gallery, Portland

Timboon Railway Shed Distillery

New path leads to Lozzar’s, W’bool

The Farmer’s Wife, Port Fairy

The right place for a Good Room, W’bool

Snout in the Trough: Camperdown

Rocksalt rocks on in Port Fairy

Cafe Bagdad pops up in Penshurst

[dropcap style=”font-size: 60px; color: #ABCCAB;”] A [/dropcap]t the risk of using a bad pun, a new alleyway café in the heart of Port Fairy is quite arresting – not least because it is run by a former police officer.

The Farmer’s Wife Harvest Cafe, tucked at the end of a gorgeous bluestone and rubble walled lane off Sackville St, is the latest venture for local Jo O’Keefe who has had what can only be described as a varied career.

Until last November, Jo was Senior Constable O’Keefe based at the Portland police station as part of a 10-year career with the thin blue line.

Prior to joining the force, however, she had spent most of her life in hospitality, including working in kitchens while studying – and completing – a Fine Art degree at Deakin University in Warrnambool in the early 1990s.

“Everyone used to call me the Cupcake Copper because I was better known for my scones and cupcakes that I would bring into work, than for any actual policing,” Jo laughs.

“I have always had a background in hospitality though and, since I was 18, worked in Lorne, Apollo Bay, Warrnambool and up at the snow fields.”

[dropcap style=”font-size: 60px; color: #ABCCAB;”] A [/dropcap]fter the birth of her son, Tex, in 2000, Jo decided to scratch an itch that she had harboured since she was 12 years old, after one of the police horses visited her school in Melbourne.

“That horse, ‘Gendarme’, had me completely hooked and I was determined to join the force one day…I finally did, just before I turned 40,” Jo explains.

“I am not sure why, but I thought it might also be better for me as a single Mum, which I was at the time, but I didn’t factor in the night shifts,” she laughs.

As a result, Tex was “raised by the village” of Port Fairy with various friends chipping in to help when Jo moved there in 2006.

It has made Tex a well-adjusted kid, who now helps out making smoothies and juices in the café during school holidays, says Jo.

[dropcap style=”font-size: 60px; color: #ABCCAB;”] F [/dropcap]our years ago, life took another turn when Jo married local farmer Scott Moore – hence the inspiration for the name of her café.

“I had been thinking about getting out of the force and I always wanted to run my own café, then this place came up and I jumped at it,” Jo says.

“I finished up work in November and, two weeks later, opened up the café in December.”

The café, which offers simple healthy lunches, coffees, cakes, fresh juices and a range of gluten-free products, hit the ground running and Jo found herself making 5.30am starts to keep on top of the summer rush.

“I knew it was going to be full on for those first couple of months, but it was great fun,” she says.

Part of the café’s appeal is that it is tucked well away from the main street and provides a safe place for kids who are kept entertained by the plastic farm animals that are provided by Jo and can be hidden into the nooks and crannies of the sandstone wall.

“I am not sure if we have found them all again yet,” she smiles.

[box] The Farmer’s Wife Harvest Cafe is at 47a Sackville St, Port Fairy, and is open 9am-3pm seven days. You can find it on Facebook here. [/box]

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[dropcap style=”font-size: 60px; color: #A02F2F;”] A [/dropcap]t some point in our lives, most of us reflect on whether what we do for a living makes us happy or if we need to take a deep breath and make a change.

For Loretta Riordan and her partner Phil Slessar, that point arrived just over three years ago when Loretta, who had a long career in hospitality, decided she no longer wanted to work for other people, but for herself.

Phil, who came from a background in electric motor repairs, was also ready for a new challenge and doing “something completely different”.

“I was moving from a job where you have very dirty hands, to one where they are very, very clean,” he said with a laugh, extending his fingers for effect.

Together, Loretta and Phil took the plunge and made an offer on a café in Kepler St, Warrnambool that they refurbished and reopened as Lozzar’s Lounge Cafe.

“I had been working ridiculously hard for other people for many years, but I never had the confidence to think that I could open my own place,” Loretta said.

“Finally, I reached the point where I realised that if I didn’t make a move, I would never do it and in the end it all happened very quickly.”

[dropcap style=”font-size: 60px; color: #A02F2F;”] P [/dropcap]hil learned the art of being a barista and Loretta expanded her cooking skills to the point where she could make virtually all of the café’s menu range herself, single-handedly, and only source a few items from other suppliers. Front-of-house was taken care of by the very capable Bec Scholz, who just moved on to a new venture last week after three years at Lozzar’s.

The café has established a loyal following for its breakfast and lunch menu which includes sit-down-and-take-your-time items like french toast, homemade muesli, fruit and oat crumble (breakfast), smoked salmon, feta and pea frittata, or a smoked chicken, leek and roast pumpkin risotto (lunch), plus the full range of ‘grab-and-go’ bagels, focaccias, salads and soups.

The sweeter side of things includes a range of plump muffins (raspberry and white chocolate is the house specialty) and delicious cakes (such as blueberry and lemon sour cream cake) paired with one of a large selection of T2 teas that are served in a pot, or a coffee from the ethically responsible Di Bella roasters.

[dropcap style=”font-size: 60px; color: #A02F2F;”] W [/dropcap]hen it comes to a successful café, however, great food and coffee are only one part of the equation. Great service is equally as important and this is where Lozzar’s steps up.

“I want all of our customers to be noticed, and by that I mean, when they walk in, we say hello, we make sure they feel welcome and comfortable and really looked after,” Loretta said.

The Lozzar’s philosophy is reflected in the inspirational phrases added around the walls, which customers have been known to photograph.

“These sayings reflect my own thinking because I never thought I would ever have my own cafe.  It has been hard work, but when the place is buzzing, when our customers are telling us that the food is great, well, it makes your day. It makes it all worthwhile,” Loretta said.

[box type=”bio”] Lozzar’s Lounge Cafe, 52a Kepler St, Warrnambool. Open Mon-Fri 8am-5pm, Sat 9am-lunch. Ph: 55612823. Find them on Facebook here. [/box]

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