Carol Altmann – The Terrier

Now for a letter of a different kind.

This letter is from one of Australia’s top journalists and writers, Jo Chandler (ex The Age), who is bringing 16 of the next generation of journalists to Warrnambool next week to take a close look at climate change – the biggest issue facing our planet.

Jo is now part of the University of Melbourne’s Centre for Advancing Journalism.

How fabulous that Jo and her team have chosen our neck of the woods for their intensive investigation, the fruits of which I plan to publish on The Terrier.

Read on to see how you can be a part of it:

Dear People of Warrnambool and Port Fairy districts,

I’m a lecturer in journalism at the University of Melbourne’s Centre for Advancing Journalism (CAJ), and editor of our digital publication, The Citizen.

Next Tuesday and Wednesday (September 3-4) we will be bringing a crew of 16 masters students from our journalism program for an intensive reporting field trip to Warrnambool and Port Fairy. Our ambition is to do some deep, useful reporting on important issues playing out in your region, and also to encourage the next generation of reporters to gain skills and experience telling the stories of regional and rural communities.

In this project, our reporters will be conducting research and interviews on stories that all one way or other connect with the issue of climate change, and the impacts it is having or will have across your region and community. We’re looking at the issue from all angles – what it means for agriculture and how farmers are adapting/planning; impacts on biodiversity; implications for disaster preparedness, particularly bushfires and extreme weather events; how it will affect jobs and the regional economy; the considerations for land use planning into the future; how the community is engaging and responding etc.

The project will be overseen and edited by an expert and highly experienced editorial team:

• Myself, Jo Chandler, lecturer and editor of the Centre for Advancing Journalism’s digital news site, The Citizen. I worked for many years at The Age and over the past several years as a freelance reporter including for The New York Times, The Guardian, The Monthly, ABC Radio National, BBC.com, New Scientist, The Atlantic, among others. You can find out more about me and my reporting archive here.
• Dr Andrew Dodd, Director of CAJ. Associate Professor Dodd has worked across radio, television, print and online platforms for more than 30 years.
• Jack Banister, a CAJ alumni and now cadet on The Citizen.
• And our local project liaison partner, co-ordinator and advisor, Carol Altmann of The Terrier.

The stories we collect will be published on our digital news site, The Citizen, and co-published on The Terrier. We are also planning to co-publish some of these with mainstream publications. We have a strong track record of co-publishing Citizen reports with The Guardian, The Age, ABC Regional and other publications. You can find links to a previous rural project we did in Gippsland, which was co-published in part by ABC Gippsland, here.

Over the next week, our reporters and editors will be reaching out to people across your communities who have some insight or expertise on the issues we will be exploring. And while we’ve done our best to locate the best characters, experts and storylines to explore, we’re sure to have missed something! So please feel free to get in touch with your ideas and suggestions. And if you would like to be part of this project, or have some contribution by someone else you would like us to consider highlighting, we would also love to hear from you:

• Jo Chandler jchandler@unimelb.edu.au, or 0408364387
• Jack Banister banister@unimelb.edu.au, 0423320743

If you have any questions, please contact us. We look forward to your thoughts and ideas, and to meeting you.

Best Regards,

Jo Chandler

Jo Chandler | Professional Expert & Lecturer

Centre for Advancing Journalism

Editor | The Citizen

Published Journalism| jochandler.com.au 

I acknowledge the Traditional Owners of the land where I live and work, the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin Nations, and pay my respects to the Elders both past and present

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By Carol Altmann

[dropcap style=”font-size: 60px; color: #8F9F59;”] W [/dropcap]e have all done it: browsed the property pages and found a renovator’s delight that prompts you to dream and ask “what if….?”

Except Melbourne couple John Watkinson and Colleen Guiney didn’t just close off their dream by closing the newspaper – and it was only the newspaper then – but took the next, huge step of actually buying the place.

“We had been looking at a couple of properties with a view to setting up luxury accommodation, and this ended up being the right one,” Colleen explains.

That property was the prominent, two-storey, historic home (b:1875) on the corner of Gipps and Regent streets, Port Fairy, a once majestic, white-washed stone building that had fallen into disrepair, but has since been spectacularly transformed into the Drift House.

[dropcap style=”font-size: 60px; color: #8F9F59;”] T[/dropcap]he house formerly known as “Riverdale”, for its proximity to the Moyne River, was owned at that time by well-known locals Tom and Irene Bartlett who at one stage operated a gallery on site.

“Tom was a bit of a collector, to say the least, and when we came to look at the place, even though it had been unoccupied for about five years, it was absolutely full of every conceivable thing you could imagine and multiples of those things,” John recalls, smiling.

That was eight years ago and when John and Colleen began the slow process of renovating, rebuilding and restoring the house, many of these things came in handy before they were relegated to the skip.

“We would come down on weekends from our place in Richmond and camp out here in the backyard and our boys (Milo, now 10, and Toby, 8) loved it. There were old kettles and toasters, about 14 chairs, six spring base bed sets…and it became their adventure playground,” Colleen laughs at the memory.

[dropcap style=”font-size: 60px; color: #8F9F59;”] F [/dropcap]ortunately there was also a working shower and flushing toilet, so the family set up a temporary kitchen in what was a brick double garage and spent the next six and a half years developing their dream.

The planning approvals alone through Moyne Shire Council took three years to finalise as it grappled with the contemporary-meets-historic design by Melbourne architects, Multiplicity, who also transformed the double garage into a small residence for the family.

And then there were the inevitable delays and cost blow-outs that come with any grand design.

“I must admit there was a couple of times when I wanted to give up,” Colleen says.

“There is no doubt it ended up costing a lot more money than we anticipated and also took a lot more time..but it has been worth it,” John adds.

[dropcap style=”font-size: 60px; color: #8F9F59;”] T [/dropcap]he Drift House was finally launched as boutique, luxury accommodation in December 2013 and combines the skills of both John and Colleen perfectly.

While both had only limited experience in running accommodation (“John’s parents had a B&B in the UK and we looked after that for a little while when we were in our 20s,” says Colleen), they have a sharp eye for what works.

John was previously a marketing executive, while Colleen, who is also a practicing artist, worked as a visual merchandiser – a person who styles products to make them appealing if not irresistible.

This potent combination explains why Drift House hit the ground running and has attracted awards, attention and accolades from around Australia and internationally since virtually the day it opened.

It was named best luxury accommodation in the Qantas 2014 Tourism Awards and recently took out the RACV Victorian Tourism Award for Luxury Accommodation for the second year running. It also made the finalist list in the prestigious Smith Hotel Awards 2014.

[dropcap style=”font-size: 60px; color: #8F9F59;”] S [/dropcap]uch was the enormous interest in the building, John and Colleen held an open home so that locals could wander through and take a look at the transformation.

The gold-coin-entry event was so popular, it raised $3000 for the Port Fairy rail trail.

Its appeal lies not only its funky design (such as slices of retro carpet on doors and fence railings as door handles) and its luxurious interiors, but its walking proximity to all the unique bits of Port Fairy, including the Merrijig Inn, Blarney Books & Art, the Whale Bone gallery, the Stag restaurant and on it goes.

[dropcap style=”font-size: 60px; color: #8F9F59;”] T [/dropcap]hese are the very parts of Port Fairy which Colleen and John have come to love and neither misses Melbourne.

“We work seven days a week, and sometimes late hours, but I still get to swim at the beach every day, do yoga or get down to my studio in Port Fairy, and John gets to cycle without having to get up at 5.30am to miss the traffic,” Colleen laughs.

“It’s a pretty good life,” John says, smiling.

[box]You can find the Drift House on the web here. You can also visit Colleen’s visual art website here.[/box]

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Tales from Port Fairy – step off the beaten track

By Carol Altmann

[dropcap style=”font-size: 60px; color: #A02F2F;”] T[/dropcap]he headline for a Trip Advisor review about The Stag restaurant in Port Fairy says it all: Ryan Sessions is back!

For chef Ryan and partner Kirstyn, the decision to take over The Stag (1847) in March this year meant a return to the town where it all began, and where they enjoyed their greatest success.

The pair was widely known for their transformation of the Merrijig Inn, Port Fairy, which they took over in 2006 and raised to a level that saw the restaurant awarded one hat in its first year and two in its second. It was also named the best restaurant in country Victoria.

It was an extraordinary achievement for a young couple who grew up and trained in south-west Victoria, with Kirstyn having been born in Koroit and Ryan moving to Warrnambool from New Zealand as a child.

The pair met when Ryan started working as a young chef at Clovelly Restaurant, in Warrnambool, having finished his apprenticeship with the now-defunct Mahogony Ship Restaurant at Flagstaff Hill.

“It was really there (at Clovelly), that we started to really understand and appreciate food and wine and how they could work together,” Ryan explains.

Prior to that, he confesses, he wasn’t particularly passionate about cooking.

“At school, I was much better in the arts subjects, but I wanted a job where I could go surfing in the morning,” Ryan recalls with a laugh.

[dropcap style=”font-size: 60px; color: #A02F2F;”] R[/dropcap]yan’s flair with food saw him picked up by the celebrated Portofino’s in Port Fairy, at that time run by Andrew and Shane Clancey and considered the top restaurant in the area.

But it was only a matter of time, of course, until the Sessions wanted to run a restaurant of their own – and the Merrijig Inn beckoned.

“It was fabulous, but it was also exhausting,” says Kirstyn. “Seven days a week, working at that level, it takes its toll.”

In 2011, the pair offered the business to top chef Tanya Connellan and partner Liz Foreman who, wait for it, had previously run The Stag.

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“The idea was for us to get out of hospitality altogether, because we felt it had all got too much,” Ryan says.

The hospitality industry, however, had other ideas.

After starting “a 12-month break” that was to last only eight months, Ryan was offered head chef with the exclusive The Argus Dining Room, at Hepburn Springs.

Unfortunately things didn’t quite go to plan and he resigned after just four months in what he says was an “amicable” departure.

[dropcap style=”font-size: 60px; color: #A02F2F;”] T[/dropcap]he Sessions returned to the south-west and, as Kirstyn explains, did a “whole lot of different things” including her working for Oscar’s Waterfront Boutique hotel in Port Fairy and Ryan helping out in the kitchen at various pubs.

“Did the patrons have any idea who was cooking their schnitzel?” I ask.

“No,” he laughs.

Patrons of The Stag, however, certainly know who is in charge and word has spread rapidly about the dynamic, bush-food based menu and all-Australian wine list.

Indeed, despite being open for only six months, the revamped restaurant was last month awarded one hat by The Age Good Food Guide.

And here Kirstyn tells me something I didn’t know: hats are awarded not just for the food, but “for the whole experience from the minute you walk in the door to the moment you leave”.

This means food, wine list, ambience, front-of-house (Kirstyn’s domain) and even the quality of glassware and cutlery.

[dropcap style=”font-size: 60px; color: #A02F2F;”] I[/dropcap]t is The Stag menu, however, that has gastronomes gasping.

Ryan sources all of his ingredients from within Australia and as close to home as possible, which includes foraging along the Port Fairy coast and using small-quantity producers such as Shaw River Buffalo Cheese (Yambuk), South Seas Abalone (Portland) and Great Ocean Ducks (Port Campbell).

“We also have a strong emphasis on using indigenous ingredients – plants, fruits and berries – and taking food back to what it was,” Ryan says.

And with that Kirstyn offers me a sample of ice plant – it is succulent and salty, and grown at Kingston, South Australia. While I will leave a full food review to those far more experienced than me, this one taste is enough to make me want to try the whole menu.

“Australia has a definite cuisine, but we are still discovering it,” Ryan says.

“There are 20,000 edible plants, for example, so we are really just touching the tip of the iceberg.”

[box]The Stag, 22 Sackville St, Port Fairy, is open for dinner only Tuesday- Saturday. Bookings: (03) 55 68 3229[/box]

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CLOSED -SUBSCRIBER ONLY COMPETITION

[dropcap style=”font-size: 60px; color: #A02F2F;”] W[/dropcap]e are delighted here at Bluestone Magazine to be working with the award-winning, luxury accommodation at Drift House, Port Fairy for a special, subscriber-only competition.

Owners John Watkinson and Colleen Guiney spent years planning and transforming the virtually derelict 1861 Customs House on the corner of Gipps and Regent streets into unique, boutique accommodation that opened in December 2013.

The Drift House was awarded best luxury accommodation in the Qantas Tourism Awards for 2014 and has been attracting accolades and national and international attention ever since.

One of the many unique aspects of Drift House is its approach to the traditional hotel mini bar.

As John explains, Drift House has done away with the standard mini bar that usually offers something like Coke, a Kit-Kat, chips and draught beer at exorbitant prices, and has instead created a Maxi Bar.

[dropcap style=”font-size: 60px; color: #A02F2F;”] T[/dropcap]he Maxi Bar offers a range of high quality treats that either come from artisans in south-west Victoria or as close to the south-west as possible.

The current Maxi Bar, for example, includes Shaw River cheese from Yambuk, Basalt wine, jam from the Pantry Door at Killarney, and hand-made yo-yos from Sandra Showler who this year took out first prize for her yo-yos at the Port Fairy show.

And while the quality is maxi, the prices are not.

“We have completely reinvented the mini bar in terms of what it offers, but also what it costs by keeping prices as close to retail as we can,” John says.

Bluestone had a peek and yes, apart from the wine and champagne, everything was priced in single figures rather than double digits. How refreshing!

[dropcap style=”font-size: 60px; color: #A02F2F;”] S[/dropcap]o where do you come in, Bluestoner?

Well, the Drift House wants your input on what special item (either edible or usable) you would like to see added to its Maxi Bar and the best idea will win a fabulous night for two at the Drift House, complete with a delicious hamper full of local produce, valued at a total of more than $375.

Your idea should try and:

1. enhance the experience of staying at Drift House by offering something special
2. promote the broader, south-west region and…
3. if appropriate, allow a guest to take a little piece of their Drift House holiday home with them.

[box]Do you know of a special, locally produced item that would fit perfectly into the Drift House Maxi Bar?

Send us your suggestion VIA EMAIL by 5pm Monday, September 28 at editor@bluestonemagazine.com.au and we will pass them on to John and Colleen to pick a winner![/box]

*Note: food item suggestions should have a shelf-life of at least four months. The major prize of one night’s accommodation may not be available during peak periods and other times when there is a two night minimum stay. Prize is not transferable.

Words and photos by Carol Altmann

It says much about the fickle world of literary success that Steven Conte, the inaugural winner of the Prime Minister’s Literary Award in 2008, is driving taxis two nights a week in Port Fairy.

But Steven, a clear-headed, well-travelled, 41-year-old, has seen enough of life to realise that personal self-worth and external notions of “success” should never share the same room.

“It is no doubt professional humiliation, but I long ago succeeded in separating off my personal sense of self with professional success, which is just as well,” he says over coffee at Charlie’s on East.

Indeed, Steven sees cab driving – one of many such jobs he has taken over the years to support his writing life (others include life modelling and bar work) – as not only a great way to meet the Port Fairy locals, but to earn at least some income while preserving the freedom he needs to write.

“At the moment I am driving two nights a week, which is far better than spending 37 hours a day in an office and having the money, but no time to write,” he says.

“I think all writers know that, to be a writer, you have to commit financial self-mutilation somewhere along the way.”

It is seven years since Steven won the lucrative, $100,000 Prime Minister’s Literary Award, with his first novel, The Zookeeper’s War, a story based around an Australian woman who is married to a German zookeeper, set during the fall of Berlin in the Second World War.

The novel was described, variously, as “an extraordinary debut” and “a powerful exploration” of the issues of trust, fidelity and the brutalities of war as it is experienced by all sides.

Since those heady days of high-profile success, Steven has relocated to Port Fairy with his wife, Jackie Bowe, who comes from south-west Victoria, and their infant son. He is now working on his third novel since the award.

Yes, a third novel, and what happened to the second helps to explain how things haven’t quite worked out as might have been expected.

As Steven explains it, his second novel was a completely different scenario to that of his first, which always makes publishers nervous, especially when your first novel was such a success (The Zookeeper’s War was published internationally).

Naked at the Bridge is set in contemporary Melbourne and focuses on the fictional lives of two women – a couple – who take part in Spencer Tunick’s real-life photo shoot on the Princess Bridge in 2001. Dozens of people gathered on the bridge that day, including Steven Conte, to be photographed naked for Tunick’s signature “Naked City” shoot.

“It is a contemporary story…as opposed to the historical fiction of The Zookeeper’s War, but the premise just wasn’t grabbing people and I couldn’t get it published,” Steven explains.

Five or six years work was destined, so far at least, to remain in a drawer.

While more fragile beings might have curled up into a ball and decided that a writing life was too hard on the soul, Steven pointed himself in a new direction that builds on where he has already gone before.

“I am writing another World War II book…historical fiction, and I am really excited by it and feeling confident about where it is going,” he says.

As any writer knows, to talk too much about a book in progress is to put a hex on it, so Steven will reveal only that it again has a strong European storyline, with an intriguing link to Russia’s Tolstoy.

At this stage the book is still a “glorified blueprint”, but Steven is back into the discipline of writing three to four hours every weekday on a laptop set up in his garage/office.

He doesn’t have an agent and there is no definite publisher for his work in progress, but Steven sees such realities as part of the bigger existential crisis facing the entire publishing industry.

“The ground is shifting beneath us and what might be how things operate one year, is not how they are operating the next.

“This is why you cannot see it as anything to do with your own self worth. You might ask yourself, ‘at what point do I give this up?’, and I am not at that point.”

[box]You can visit Steven Conte’s website here.[/box]