"little Smeaton" a Smeaton Travel Page by Kate-Me

The small township of Smeaton (well, it's so small it almost isn't a town but for our purposes we'll call it one, as there are two important Tourist Attractions here, as well as farms and houses)

It is located approximately 100 kms north west of Melbourne, 30 kms from Ballarat, and only about 8 kms further on from Creswick, my home town.

The two main attractions Smeaton is home to is the historic Smeaton Mill, and the Tuki Trout farm and retreat.

Before I tell you more about Tuki, I'd like to share a wonderful photo which I took just the other day (April 2004) as we were driving towards home through Smeaton after a trip away. (See travelogue as well).
The day was overcast and we hadn't seen the sun, and then all of a sudden it was there, lighting up the countryside with a strange golden glow, just like this. And not only that, but a beautiful rainbow and a sunset to follow about 10 minutes later.

I visited Tuki for the first time recently, quite by chance.
It was a couple of weeks before Christmas 2003 and Ballarat Tourism treated all of its Information Centre volunteers a night out together...somewhere. It was a mystery trip.
We all got on the bus in Ballarat at the appointed time, played guessing games as to where we were going for quite some time (there was a prize involved for the one with the correct answer).
I wouldn't have thought of Tuki (probably because it's so close to the area where I live, though more than most, I try not to take anything in my own region for granted)

As we drew near to the property, the countryside appeared quite similar to just outside my home town...we reached the 2 km gravel driveway - the property is called 'Stony Rises' (aptly named because it's a volcanic area and there are rocks just everywhere)

As I've lived all my life in this region, I wasn't expecting any surprises, scenery wise, thinking I?d seen it all before....nothing to gasp over for me etc etc.....and then the bus reached the top of the rise in the land, just before the restaurant, and I was amazed....instead of yet more rocks in front of me, there was an endless farming plain and trees stretching faraway off into the distance, to faint misty grey mountain ridges (almost 100 kms away).

In the foreground were stone cottages, a wooden building/restaurant, large corrugated iron farm sheds and sheep. Then there were the trout dams, with some native and some English willow and other trees...it was rather beautiful, even to me.
Such expansive views - I'm sorry I didn't see them years ago.
The owners of the historic property, Robert and Jan, who turned it into a tourist venue 18 years ago (and who have had the land for decades and farmed on the former 1850?s sheep station) came out to greet us and were very hospitable (in fact, later at dinner it felt to me a little like the European style of dining ?en famille?, which I really appreciate but rarely experience in Australia - comfortable, relaxed, friendly, but not over-the-top.).

We took a walking tour of the main part of the property, including the cottages. Some of the group tried their hand at fishing for trout for dinner (Robert cleans, cooks and de-bones it for each guest at the table), some played bocce and others sat in the wooden restaurant with rustic tin roof and leadlight windows and simply enjoyed relaxing and chatting.