Anneke Deutsch was living in Thornbury, a northern suburb of Melbourne, in 1990 when she decided she wanted to move somewhere more rural to build the sculpture studio she had always wanted. ‘But the country wasn’t a very friendly place for lesbians and gays at that time,’ she recalls.

Daylesford, however, was one place that was developing a reputation as a more welcoming and open place, thanks largely to the town’s annual Women’s Ball. The Women’s Ball was held at the Daylesford Town Hall and attracted women from all over Melbourne. While it was predominately lesbian women who attended, the balls were open to women who might be questioning their sexuality, and women who were bisexual. After securing a job in Ballarat as a prosthetist, Anneke made the move to Daylesford, where she felt she could have both the studio she had dreamed of and a supportive community.

Anneke first moved to a shared lesbian household in Eganstown, which became known as ‘RMB cup of tea’, after a teapot and cup that one of the housemates had permanently glued to the mailbox. Because she was still initially travelling back to Melbourne on weekends and Wednesdays to spend time with her partner, Anneke didn’t want to rent a whole house for herself, and she was keen to connect with her new community. This share house was well known in the local community. With between five and six permanent residents, ‘RMB cup of tea’ was a place where friendship circles intersected and various dykes with links to any of the residents would drop by for a cup of tea and a chat. Anneke found herself tapped into a wide network of the Daylesford lesbian community and formed connections to women who she would later work with to organise events, such as the Women’s Ball and LesFest.

Anneke found connections with her new community through other avenues as well. One of the early meeting spots was Jack’s, a dinner held upstairs at local venue Alpha Galleria on a Friday night. Jack’s was a private gathering for local gays and lesbians, and visitors from out of town (who were gay or lesbian) were also welcomed. These dinners created an environment in which community was nurtured in an informal way. Another community hub was Doublenut Café, run by Marcel, a gay man from Switzerland. On the weekends, a local lesbian couple, Jacqui and Julie ran a café out of the premises. Anneke and her long term partner, Linda, celebrated their 10 anniversary there in 1997. By 2007, they were comfortable enough in their local community to celebrate their 20 at the local pub. The venue for their 30 isn’t yet decided, almost every possibility is now lesbian-friendly.

Daylesford’s main street in the early 1990s still reflected that of a small country town. There was a milk bar, a small supermarket, green grocer and drapers. A sign of things changing was the addition of a chocolate shop ‘Sweet Decadence’, started by Anah Holland Moore, who was the driving force behind the Women’s Ball. ‘Sweet Decadence’ was a lesbian and gay-friendly café and a meeting place that was the first in a wave of lesbian and gay-friendly businesses to be established in the town.

In 1997, Anneke was part of a group of gay and lesbian men and women from Daylesford who hired a bus to take them to Pride 1997 in Melbourne. Their purpose was to hand out flyers and lanyards advertising the upcoming inaugural Chill Out Festival in Daylesford.

The same year, Anneke was one of a group of women from Daylesford who agreed to organise and host the next LesFest, ‘a festival for lesbian women to get together, to organise politically, to have fun and to know they are not alone’. Over 300 women attended LesFest 1998, a festival held at Rutherford Park. There was music, workshops, conferences, amazon games, and plenty of nude swimming. Most of the attendees came from Melbourne and other cities across Australia, but the Daylesford lesbian community was heavily involved. Despite the theft of a banner at the last minute by some Smeaton locals, the festival was a huge success.

Anneke has seen the Daylesford community grow over the years she has lived there. While more accepting than other country towns, Anneke feels that the establishment and success of ChillOut, has made Daylesford even more open and welcoming for the gay and lesbian community: ‘That was one of its purposes really ... to make it an open event to say come along and see what lesbian and gay life was like.’ Today, according to Anneke, the lesbian and gay community is so actively part of the mainstream community in Daylesford that people might visit Daylesford because they have heard it’s such a lesbian and gay friendly place, but not in fact meet any during their visit. Social networking events like Jack’s no longer exist, and social circles are smaller and more private.

Anneke benefitted from the feminist lesbian movement of the 1970s, but forming her lesbian identity in the 1980’s, she still experienced prejudice, discrimination and fear. In Daylesford she found a supportive, loving and accepting community. Anneke acknowledges that her ideas and expectations of community have changed over the years. It used to be about people supporting each other – people who have lived shared experiences and understand the psychological pain and challenges of living a double life in and out of the closet. Today, Anneke’s main concerns are how to support and find support in the lesbian community as ageing becomes an issue. With more than half the lesbian community single, and many living alone and without children, life is throwing up new challenges as they grow older.

Max Primmer first moved to Daylesford in 2003. He was 53 years old at the time and had been living and working in Melbourne. After a weekend at the ChillOut festival, he decided to move to Daylesford.

Three weeks later, he closed down his business and took the plunge. ‘It was a big spur of the moment thing’, says Max: but a lot of my life has been lived like that ... you make a decision and you just want to do something ... you can’t live on regrets, you’ve just got to do what feels like is right for you. Max quickly made a home for himself in Daylesford, throwing himself into his new community. He was soon invited to join the ChillOut festival committee.

As a gay man, Max recognises that he’s had a very good life. After coming out to his family at the age of fifteen, Max has continued to be open and honest about who he is. He feels this approach has meant that most people have accepted him without any issues. ‘If you’re upfront about who you are’, he says, ‘then you don’t get as many dramas. That’s what I’ve found. It doesn’t work for everybody, I know that’.

Max had no issues being a gay man when he moved to Daylesford, but appreciated the fact that ‘people in the town were just very accepting’. He acknowledges that the response he gets from locals today is in part due to the pioneering efforts of those women and men who moved to Daylesford in the 1970s and 1980s: 'All parts of the community, the gay community and the heterosexual community in Daylesford have just been incredible. They’ve welcomed me and a lot of other people with open arms … you’re part of this town as well as everybody else.'

One of the biggest reasons the Daylesford community has been so embracing of the queer community, speculates Max, is because without it, the town might not have survived. 'The shops had closed down; it was a very quiet town. It was a dying town, and then once the first LGBTI people came here and bought [homes], it came back to life.' As well as reviving the town, the LGBTI community have reinforced Daylesford’s reputation as a place of freedom and acceptance. Some tourists, notes Max, still come to Daylesford hoping to get a glimpse into gay and lesbian life. The ChillOut festival weekend is now the biggest wedding weekend of the year.

Today, Daylesford is a thriving tourist hotspot with a dynamic local community. There is a local cinema, radio station, first-rate restaurants, cafes, accommodation, spa treatments, antiques and art. Community to Max is about being part of something, and in Daylesford there is plenty to be a part of.

Pat Harrison first moved to Daylesford as part of spiritual organisation ‘Shan the Rising Light’, now called ‘Society for Maitreya Theosophy’. While Pat had always liked country towns, she didn’t like what she calls the parochialism that comes with many of them.

But Daylesford seemed different. She recalls:

... when I came up here to visit a friend of mine who’s actually gay, I thought this was actually a country town that I could live in. Because it’s much more open ... to alternative ways of viewing life, the universe and everything, than most country towns are, a lot more open than most country towns.

When Pat and the spiritual group first moved up to Daylesford in 1991, they did face some hostility. The actions of other religious organisations in the United States had put the people of Daylesford on edge, and they were fearful that this group might quickly take over their town. ‘There was an element of real paranoia and hostility’, says Pat. But it didn’t take long for the town to adjust. It helped that the group members were community-focused and keen to have a positive impact on their new home. The Himalaya Bakery, which is still operating today, was started as a way for members of the group to make a living. It was a popular and community-minded business that helped to allay many of the townspeople’s concerns. Soon the Rocklyn Yoga Ashram moved in, and Daylesford quickly gained a reputation as a place for people seeking an alternative lifestyle.

Lesbian women and gay men also began moving in, inspired by the openness and acceptance of the town. Many of them set up businesses, including bed and breakfasts, cafes, shops and restaurants, which kick-started the town’s tourism industry. Tourism has in turn helped to further develop the town’s reputation as one of openness and acceptance, but in Pat’s eyes, that atmosphere was present before the tourists came. Today, with tourism the primary economy in Daylesford, it is even more essential to maintain that character:

If your town depends on tourism then there’s a premium for being open and tolerant as well that comes from that. And that’s not just towards ... one minority group ... it’s towards community – all sorts of marginalised communities.

Pat and her partner raised their only child, Marlo, in Daylesford. When Marlo told their parents that they felt traditional gender roles did not apply to them and that they were transgender, Pat was initially surprised, as the thought had never occurred to her. In retrospect, however, she realises that Marlo had never sat well within gendered stereotypes. But for a young, transgender person, growing up in Daylesford was still difficult. Pat thinks that Daylesford’s openness does not extend to transgender people. ‘I don’t think Daylesford is LGBTIQ friendly’, says Pat, ‘it’s gay friendly’.

For all the openness and acceptance the town has shown towards the gay and lesbian community, Pat feels that Daylesford, like many other places, has trouble with the concept of transgender. Mainstream society is geared towards a gender binary system. Even our language is structured according to this system. But the history of Daylesford’s transformation from dying country town, to the thriving alternative lifestyle mecca that it is today, provides Pat with hope that mainstream society’s attitudes and expectations will soon change. Pat knows of one transgender person who transitioned while living in Daylesford, and still lives in the town today. Some people remember her as male, but today she lives as female. ‘Even one person’, says Pat, ‘begins to shift people’s perceptions’.

Marlo is now studying at university in Melbourne. Opportunities for younger people in Daylesford, in terms of work and study, are limited. Marlo returns to Daylesford to visit their parents and the beautiful town they grew up in, but, Pat says, Marlo feels conspicuous here: ‘If you are making the transition – the gender transition, it’s got to be a difficult place to do that, because everybody knows everybody, especially amongst the young people’.

Sarah Lang grew up on a farm in Spring Hill, just outside of Daylesford. During her late teenage years and into her early twenties, Sarah would visit Daylesford to check out the gay and lesbian section of the bookshop by the lake.

‘When I was getting a bit confused’, Sarah comments, ‘I used to sneak in there and hide in the corridor and read these little books’. Her knowledge of the stereotypical lesbian did not gel with the person she felt she was. Living in the country, Sarah felt isolated. She didn’t know any lesbians like her or have anyone to guide her, and couldn’t figure out where she fit in. It wasn’t until she first heard k.d. lang’s album Ingenue that she began to suspect there were other kinds of lesbians, and that she might be one.

Sarah’s first involvement with the queer community in Daylesford was as a respite carer for a gay man with AIDS. This man took Sarah to her first gay dance, which was organised by Springs Connections at Lyonville, just outside of Daylesford. Springs Connections formed as a result of gay business owners wanting to promote Daylesford as a gay friendly tourist town. The group organised a number of events, including some specifically for youth living in the country.

Despite her fear, Sarah felt deep down that she had found the place she was meant to be. She attended several more events, some of which were held in Melbourne to introduce country kids to queer people and the community in Melbourne. Newsletters – hand-drawn and photocopied – were mailed out in blank envelopes to those people who were still in the closet or undecided about their sexuality, in order to keep them connected to the community and local events.

When Sarah first started visiting Daylesford in the early 1990s, it was still relatively quiet, but was becoming increasingly well-known thanks to groups like Springs Connections and events like ChillOut. The Lake House was well established and there were a growing number of shops in the main street, adding to the town’s reputation as a place for health and relaxation, as well as artistic creativity. A number of the local shops were proudly owned by gay people. Sarah remembers ‘they had the little rainbow sticker out the front and you’d get excited when you saw one because you’d think, oh wow these people are all like me’.

In 1996, when she was 28 years old, Sarah bought her first house in Daylesford and moved to the town permanently. By that time, Daylesford’s reputation as a queer-friendly town was well established. A number of public groups had formed and regular events were held that were explicitly queer-friendly. The Rainbow Cloggers, a group of gay men and lesbian women, performed clog dancing in town. The Palais and Frangos & Frangos were well-known, queer-friendly venues that would host various events, including drag shows and dances for the queer community. The Cozy Corner was a popular restaurant hangout. Sarah remembers feeling like the community was strong and united, but acknowledges this may have been because there were few venues in town where you could comfortably go out as a queer person. There were still some venues at that time, including the Daylesford Hotel and the Farmers Arms, where Sarah felt unwelcomed and unsafe as a lesbian woman.

Today, as a result of events like ChillOut and the presence of an ever-growing queer community in Daylesford, Sarah notices no delineation between the queer community and the straight community. There are no gay events anymore, she feels, because there is no need for them.

As a result of this popularity and Daylesford’s reputation as a queer-friendly town, Sarah and a few other business owners noticed that some visitors are becoming more discerning and wanting to stay somewhere that is not only gay-friendly but also owned and operated by the gay community. Recently, a group of around twenty local gay business owners got together and formed GOGO (Gay Owned, Gay Operated) Daylesford Hepburn. GOGO provides a platform for local business owners to pool resources and to market directly to a gay audience. It gives the community a voice and the support to branch out and connect with a wider community, much like the earlier group Springs Connections helped to bring together the Daylesford queer community in the early 1990s. GOGO is also actively involved in fundraising for events and organisations like ChillOut and the Victorian AIDS Council’s VACountry program.

Daylesford has become what everyone wants their community to be: a place where everyone belongs. ‘Most people [in Daylesford]’, says Sarah, ‘would probably assume that you’re gay before they’d assume you were straight’. It’s a place where if you are sick, your neighbours will bring you soup. If your dog runs away, you can be sure someone will find it and return it safely home. In Sarah’s words, ‘We all just live as one big happy family, it’s great’.

Tom Cockram was living on the Mornington Peninsula and running his own pottery workshop and gallery when he was convinced by a friend to make the move to Daylesford. The low cost of living was a huge attraction to Tom, who was at the time living off the earnings of his pottery.

He spent nine months searching for the perfect place, before finally purchasing Hepburn’s Garage for $80,000 in September 1988. Hepburn’s Garage was wedged between the Palais dance hall and an old billiard hall. While it needed quite a bit of work, Tom could see the potential of the place as not only a showroom for his pottery, but a workshop and kiln too.

When Tom first arrived, Daylesford was a quiet country town with lots of empty shops and not much going on. The affordability of property in the area, which had attracted Tom, also attracted other buyers. Women, sometimes alone, in pairs or small groups, were purchasing homes – small miners cottages and the like – for as little as $10,000. Tom recalls that many of these women were lesbians and were seeking a like-minded and accepting community.

Soon, Tom noticed that gay men began to follow, using their decorating talents to turn run-down country cottages into delightful bed and breakfasts: ‘A gay person bought this place, another one here. Some had partners, some didn’t. All of a sudden they’re renovating and doing up these houses’.

Tom Cockram didn’t officially come out until he was 50 years old. After some past experiences of sexual trauma, Tom had always preferred the company of women because he felt safe around them. He married and had a daughter before separating from his wife in the early 1970s. Almost twenty years passed before Tom came to the realisation that he was gay. In Daylesford he met John and had his first gay relationship. ‘It was a shock’, he recalls, ‘all of a sudden I became aware of other gay people in town’.

When Tom first moved to Daylesford, the gay and lesbian community was still in its infancy. There were queer-friendly events and venues but also some tensions between gay and lesbian residents and others in the local community. After a particularly public confrontation at the local pub, Tom noticed general attitudes towards gay and lesbians in the community had changed. ‘All of a sudden’, he remembered, those homophobic people who started the fight, ‘the people of that pub, weren’t welcome.’

One of Tom’s first public outings as a gay man was to Jack’s – a Friday night institution in Daylesford. Each Friday night, Jack’s restaurant would close to the public but open to the gay and lesbian community. ‘You had to either be gay or the son or daughter or mother or father of a gay person’ to visit Jack’s on a Friday night, recalls Tom. When Tom first arrived, he remembers seeing his neighbours who said to him, ‘Oh we’d been laying bets on you’.

While he was living in Mornington, Tom was part of a small community of artists and local business owners who banded together to produce an advertising brochure for the tourists who came from Melbourne to enjoy the sights and produce of the area. He was also involved in the establishment of the popular Red Hill Market. As Daylesford’s reputation as an LGBTIQ-friendly community grew, more and more gay and lesbian people moved into the area. The town expanded rapidly, with the establishment of bed and breakfasts, spa centres, galleries, gift shops, cafes and restaurants to cater to the emerging tourist market.

Through his connections at Jack’s, Tom was one of a small group of business owners who decided to form a business association, named Springs Connections, as a way of promoting all the gay-owned and operated businesses in the area. A brochure was produced listing all the gay businesses in Daylesford. Not long after Springs Connections was formed, the idea for ChillOut festival took hold. Tom remembers:

ChillOut came just as an after thought after we had Midsummer, then we had Pride March, then there was Mardi Gras in Sydney and all of a sudden riding on the crest of the wave – what do we do?

From the first event held in 1997, ChillOut has grown to become the biggest queer pride festival in regional Australia.

Tulku Rose was working as a primary school teacher when she fell in love with Daylesford in the early 1980s. ‘Daylesford was a deadbeat old town that nobody much wanted to come to’, she recalls, ‘but I fell in love with the lake ... I just thought it was one of the nicest places I’ve ever been’.

After finding a teaching job in Daylesford, Tulku and her partner moved into an old farmhouse on the edge of town. Unsure of how the town might react to their alternative lifestyle, Tulku and her partner kept to themselves. Daylesford’s gay and lesbian community was not easy to find at first. Others, perhaps wary like Tulku and her partner, also kept to themselves. But it wasn’t long before Tulku was introduced to some other local lesbian women and realised that Daylesford was much more accepting of difference than other country towns.

The affordability of property in Daylesford attracted many single women who were priced out of other areas. Tulku recalls women in couples or groups buying houses and moving to Daylesford in the 1980s and 1990s. After receiving a promotion, Tulku briefly moved back to Melbourne before she suffered a workplace injury, which put a permanent end to her teaching career. She returned to Daylesford, bought a house and contemplated what to do with the rest of her life.

After deciding to start a meditation group, Tulku converted a room in her home into a meditation centre. People came from all over town and she quickly realised there was a great need in Daylesford for a counselling service. Tulku soon became a provider of tea and sympathy, and a shoulder to cry on for the people of Daylesford.

Helping people became a recurring theme in Tulku’s life. She became an ordained minister – the first female minister in the Central Highlands, and was greatly supported by her community. Needing a way to supplement her pension and the small income from her meditation classes, Tulku joined the growing trend and turned her house into a bed and breakfast.

It was around this time that the Daylesford community noticed an influx of single men to the town. They arrived sick and alone. It was the AIDS crisis in full swing. Tulku was part of a group that founded the Central Highlands AIDS support team, which provided massage therapists, respite carers, meals on wheels and companionship. It was an incredibly hard time for everyone involved and Tulku remembers attending the funerals of many friends during this period.

Slowly, the town was changing. Lesbian women were taking up small pieces of farming land, and living in share houses or as couples. Gay men were opening bed and breakfasts. Cafes and restaurants owned and operated by gay and lesbian people were being established on the main street. Tulku recalls:

Although it sounds like it was the gay capital, sometimes people thought if they came to Daylesford they’d see everybody holding hand in hand going down the street ... it really wasn’t as dramatic as that.

The lower cost of living meant that many of the people who relocated to Daylesford brought ready money with them, which helped boost the town’s economy. Tourism quickly became Daylesford’s primary industry.

With a number of businesses in town being owned and operated by gay and lesbian people, a group of business owners came together to start Springs Connections – a way of organising and promoting gay-friendly businesses in and around Daylesford. Springs Connections produced a coloured booklet advertising all the gay-friendly businesses in the area, including accommodation, massage, spa treatments, artist studios, restaurants and cafes. Tulku’s bed and breakfast was one of the featured businesses.

Out of the networks formed through Springs Connections came the idea for a festival to celebrate gay pride and raise the profile of Daylesford’s gay and lesbian community. ‘We just decided we were going to do it’, Tulku recalls, ‘it was a success right from the word go’.

A property was made available and a short time later, the first ChillOut festival was held. Despite the vandalism of some promotional signs, the festival was a fantastic success and gradually grew into the biggest and longest running queer pride event in regional Australia.

Having lived in Daylesford for over 35 years, Tulku has seen a lot of change. She describes the influx of people into the town like the ploughing of a field and a fresh start, where ‘everybody that came found a little spot they could sit down and enjoy’. Once a rural farming community, Daylesford is now a tourist town that welcomes everyone with open arms.