For many years my friendship group has been tossing around the idea of all retiring to a country town where we can all be within a few minutes of each other. One of my friends is very keen in Creswick being the destination and, since I’d never been, I decided this year, while I wasn’t working, would be a great time to check it out. Cresfest is an annual folk music festival that happens in April so it seemed like a good chance to see the town at its best.

I left Melbourne at midday on Friday and it took a bit over two hours to get there from Heathmont. Creswick is near Ballarat, which is on the opposite side of Melbourne and, unfortunately, involved driving down the Calder freeway. ‘Godforsaken’ might be a little dramatic, but it’s a drab and dull drive for an hour on a rubbish-strewn road with sad old farms every so often.

Creswick itself is surrounded by small hills and forest, making it a bit of an oasis in the somewhat barren landscape of central Victoria.

I arrived a bit after 2 and had a look around the Airbnb I’d booked (‘the house on the hill’ if you like the look of it). The house was very nice and well appointed except for the fact that all the lights, bar the lamps, were fitted with cold white globes, there by reducing the coziness of the property by half. Why anyone, anywhere outside of a medical setting, would put in blue white light over warm white is a complete mystery to me.

The house is built on a hillside overlooking the town but the front of the house is just bedrooms so there is a pod on the side of the house with a glass wall and a lovely view.

It has a log fire and some uncomfortable single wicker chairs, which is a shame because lounging in front of a fire in really comfy chairs is a premium night time experience.

After poking around the house and making a mental note of all the things I’d change if I owned it, I went for a walk down the main street, which is about 200 metres away down a steep hill.

The main street of a Creswick definitely has a fancier end. There is a French patisserie with very posh case of pastries, several historic pubs and restaurants and a local library that looks like it was built very recently with zero concern for the gold rush era streetscape.

No photos of the library, it was too ugly.

After a lap and a detour down a side street I walked back to the house and jumped in the car to visit the local lake.

Very pretty, possibly enhanced unfairly by the flawless weather. Jane tells me the water is always freezing.

For the rest of the afternoon and half the evening I drank wine, listened to the Parenting Hell podcast and did some drawing. I watched the sunset, birds flocking around, and ate a slice of cauliflower bake that I brought from home.

Jess and Christophe arrived mid evening and we had a few drinks before going to bed at a very sensible hour.

In the morning I was pleased and surprised to wake up without a hangover.

We had all bought Saturday tickets for Cresfest so the first order of business was getting our digital tickets translated into wristbands. Our first act of the day was a duo of Indian guitarists who played bluegrass (so they said, folk music is a whole new world to me) and got the crowd to sing along to Home Among The Gum Trees, which was twee but cute.

Jane and Ash were driving up on the day so I went back to the house to meet them then we walked back down the hill together. After not being able to get into a show that Jess and Christophe were already in (there were 20 venues spread out around the town) we sat outside the pub for a chat, got some lunch then went to see The Tuck Shop Ladies, who were very entertaining, playing short, funky, original songs.

We walked to the primary school to check out what was there and Jane booked a session with a fortune teller. We also caught a bit of a lovely father and daughter act who turned out to be friends of Kat’s. Small world!

I got a bit tired of wandering and headed back to the house in the late afternoon to sit in the sun and relax. Eventually I lit the fire and then everyone else came back and we sat and had a very pleasant chat for a while before Jane and Ash headed back to Melbourne.

The overall assessment of the festival had been that it was a bit overpriced, poorly signed (the food vans that had set up at the primary school were completely out of sight of the rest of the festival) and it would’ve benefited from more stalls. However the acts we saw were good, the crowd was lovely and the weather was 10/10.

Being so used to electronic music festivals, it was strange to be sitting down listening to people play, but it all felt very civilised and I expect it’ll get better every year.