The president of the Charlton Country Women's Association (CWA), Janet Stafford, attempts to be matter-of-fact when talking about her central Victorian home town.
"It's not utopia," she said.
"But it's awfully, awfully good."
There is something going on in Charlton, just shy of three hours north of Melbourne, and it is worthy of deeper exploration.
It is not that it is unencumbered by problems – like all other regional towns, it has those.
But there is an energy in Charlton, a warmth and radiant positivity that shimmers like the main street on a hot day.
It courses through local publican Greg Towers, as he stands atop his own bar, black electric guitar slung over his shoulder, gleefully shredding to a giddy front bar crowd.
"I've been back here 15 months and I haven't wiped the silly grin off my face since," he said.
An unusual friendship
There are plenty of ways to understand Charlton, the self-described Friendly Town home to about 1,000 people, but the OK Motels festival might provide one of the best entry points.
In 2018, out-of-towner photographer Kate Berry developed the idea to host a music festival of sorts inside the Charlton Motel.
The fact it spawned from an Instagram account documenting the faded beauty of country motels could lead to the cynical charge that the town was perhaps being used as a prop – merely a vintage backdrop for city visitors to get a new profile picture.
Instead, a far more meaningful connection has occurred.
In its fifth year, the town of Charlton itself has grown to become the headliner – its character and characters the main support acts.
The community swimming pool this past week became a dreamy mid-afternoon party venue under the mid-February sun.
Dozens crammed into the local lawn bowls club for barefoot bowls and Devonshire tea.
All the while, a thrilling exchange took place between locals and visitors, who might never otherwise meet.
The magnetic presence of CWA member Eily Rosewall could be felt as she flitted about the bowls club, where she is also vice-president.
"I have a wonderful time. It's the younger ones meeting the older ones," she said.
"It's like speed dating!"
Friendships struck during the festival's Locals and Blow-ins pool competition have evolved to the point that some Melbourne visitors this year stayed the night in the homes of their new Charlton friends.
"We've placed a lot of importance on the people coming to the event actually talking and connecting with the people who live here," Kate Berry said.
There was a free-form, freewheeling feel to this year's festival – a choose your own Charlton adventure that, as Ms Berry suggests, "makes people coming here do the work".
"People have the greatest time here, but they are not being spoon fed," she said.
"Each side's giving something to meet at a point."
Even in the CWA kitchen, where more than 200 scones were piped with jam and cream, concessions were being made.
There's no official CWA recipe for gluten-free or vegan scones, but a flurry of activity from the town's members made sure all were welcome and catered for.
Twenty perfectly risen scones sat in a Tupperware container affixed with a pink handwritten post-it note. It read "Gultin free."
A new, unlikely home
Perhaps the real success of Charlton and OK Motels is the permission structure it has created for a younger generation of city residents to see themselves as a useful part of a small regional economy.
Some are now visualising their place as part of its future.
Thirty-four year-old Tori Gentle and her partner Nicole stand as living, home-owning proof.
The couple couldn't afford to buy in Melbourne, so early last year they set their search on the usual real estate websites for "anywhere that's three hours from Preston".
In the mix was a home in Charlton – a place they only recognised because of OK Motels.
If a town was willing to embrace an alternative music festival, they figured, it might just be welcoming to a young queer couple.
"There's some sort of comfort in thinking that the town does accept things that are a little bit left of centre," Tori Gentle said.
For just under $250,000, they now have their sprawling 2,000 square metre "dream home," with a backyard that stretches for days, a veggie garden and a set of chooks.
"It's such a special place and such an amazing community of people. Everyone's just so friendly," she said.
"Multiple people have come up and said, 'It's so nice to have fresh young faces in town'.
"I just love living in Charlton now. We're here for the foreseeable future."
Tori, a former cafe owner, now works out of the local library in a community engagement role for the council and has joined the town band.
She plans on volunteering at the Rex Theatre, a stunning institution in the town's main street.
If she does, it will be alongside David Pollard, who started volunteering at the community-owned theatre when he was 19.
That was in 1980, and he'd rather not calculate the hours he has spent there since.
"I don't want to know. It'll scare me."
With its lush red curtains and dramatic art deco features, The Rex Theatre might just be one of the most spectacular in all of Victoria.
It runs solely on volunteers and needs to sell about 100 movie tickets a week to be viable.
The Rex Theatre's potential as a regional home to the arts and live music is profound, if so far largely untapped.
Like so many in the town, David Pollard is optimistic.
"It's an exciting period," he said.
"It's great with a few younger people coming to town. The [Rex Theatre] Board is open enough to let new ideas happen here too."
What those new ideas look like could be anything, though the 62-year-old treasurer holds out one personal hope.
"I've never actually been to the opera, but I just want to hear what it sounds like in this place," he said.
'We have our challenges'
Kaylene Cossar's office as president of the Charlton Neighbourhood House is tucked behind a curtain at the theatre.
It is both in the heart of the town and out of view – just like Kaylene prefers.
The 2022 Charlton Citizen of the Year is far more comfortable opening tinnies with a spoon while working a volunteer bar shift at OK Motels, which she has done every year of its existence, than being the centre of attention.
But Ms Cossar is an unapologetically loud advocate for her beloved home town.
She ensures Charlton's qualities, as well as its issues, are known.
"Like all country towns, we have our challenges," she said.
Just this month, Charlton made news in Melbourne for having a newly built childcare centre lie dormant for 18 months because it couldn't find an operator.
Ms Cossar said the town also suffered from a shortage of aged care and assisted living facilities, which equally resulted in not enough available houses for the next generation of Charlton residents to move into.
As a local farmer of export hay, grains and lamb, she is acutely familiar with the region's propensity to flood.
The October floods may not have been nearly as devastating for Charlton as those in 2011, but farmers whose paddocks absorbed much of the damage are still wearing the cost. Hers was among them.
Ms Cossar is nonetheless quick to pivot to the positive.
She mentions that when OK Motels' October event was cancelled because of the floods, a bar in Melbourne held a fundraiser for the town.
T-shirts meant for the festival were sold off to raise money for the Neighbourhood House.
"It's great to feel like they are invested in us," Ms Cossar said.
Cultural exchange cuts both ways
Dinner at this year's OK Motels festival was served by the town's Year 10 students, who were raising money for their work experience placements in Melbourne.
Naomi Fitzpatrick, a parent of one of the teens, watched on as chops, sausages and buttered bread were sent out alongside vegan curries through the motel's arched serving window.
"It's fantastic. Outside money is awesome," Ms Fitzpatrick said.
"Being a small country town, you're always digging into the same pot, the same parents, same families, same farming communities.
"It surely beats the old raffle down in front of the supermarket."
The dinner was soundtracked by a group of local musicians.
Local bus driver and Lions Club president Ross Lane could be spotted on drums, face beaming up at his best mate, keyboardist Leo "The Weed" Tellefson.
He said the festival had changed his perspective about his lifelong home town.
"You start to realise how good the town is," Mr Lane said.
"The older you get, the more you appreciate your town, your community, and just keeping the place alive. I actually wouldn't live anywhere else."
Behind the bar, Kaylene Cossar was all hustle, wringing the professional details out of anyone who approached for a chat.
Her hope was that some of the attendees – no matter their profession – might take on a Charlton kid to do work experience.
"We're a big believer in giving our young people a really great exposure to everything," she said.
"Even just having conversations to extend the diversity of people the kids interact with is really important.
"They may have issues around gender identity and sexual orientation and things like that, so for them to be exposed to more people than the norm in Charlton is wonderful."
She wished the town didn't rely on so many volunteer hours ("our kids shouldn't have to fundraise to do work experience!" she fussed).
But Kaylene Cossar is proud of her community, and its ability to fuse its identity, history and traditions with an exciting, open-minded ambition for the future.
"Let's face it, you need money to survive. But for us, we need positive people coming into our community and engaging with us," she said.
"We do really think that we're accepting. To have people come here and fall in love with the place and want to move here, that is what we're all about.
"That's what we need."
