Tales of Trentham begin

It's been some time that "Our Country Life" has had regular postings. This was partially due to not having internet access since moving to Trentham late December. Now that we are pretty much settled in our new house, its starting to feel like home. The process took a full twelve months with both the administration and building.

We are often asked how we chose Trentham as our place of retirement - the answer was always, "We didn't - it chose us." It must have been 2 or 3 years ago we decided to spruce up our Mentone home to sell and move from "Melbourne - Our Home by the Bay" (remember our past blog title?)
We considered many places for retirement - Launceston, Tasmania was one that attracted us. Then there was Warrnambool on the far west coast of Victoria. Both were too far from family and friends.
Then we started looking at towns no more that 1.5 hours drive from the Melbourne CBD.

Trentham Falls in early winter

During this stage, I had transitioned to a 4 day week and on my Fridays off, we would search out houses within that time frame from Melbourne. Strangely we kept driving through Trentham. We would stop for lunch or for a late afternoon glass of bubbles. We had friends who lived here so we would occasionally pop in to say hello.

One sunny spring afternoon while sitting outside our favourite wine bar in Trentham, a local couple pulled up in their C3 Citroen and being a Citroen tragic I struck up a conversation after which they joined us for a drink. Anyway after they left, we looked at each other and agreed that we both could live here. That's when house hunting became serious. A block of land came on the market and we fell in love with the existing trees, the size of the block (not too big, yet not too small) and the fact that it had crown land behind it which also had a small creek.

Trentham Falls in mid winter when the rains came.

Trent Creek running in mid winter is at the far end of the reserve behind our block. It feeds into the Coliban River which flows over the Trentham Falls.

The thought of building a modern home to suit the climatic conditions of Victoria's Central Highlands seemed an obvious choice. We'll explain more on subsequent posts.

So! Our Country Life now changes to TRENTHAM TALES. It will bring you stories of the local history, the surrounding scenery, eating and drinking establishments, festivals and just the local lifestyle of this small and magical village of Trentham.

Leon and Sue