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Meet Chewton's publican for morning people

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The Nugget
February 20, 2026

★ Meet Chewton’s publican for morning people ★

Sam Downing at The Heron Coffee Cart

Sam Downing calls herself “the publican for morning people”.

From 7am on weekdays, she’s behind the espresso machine at The Heron coffee cart in Chewton — making lattes and smoothies for res swimmers, tradies on their way to work, and parents who need to debrief after the school run.

Six months ago, the opportunity to buy the coffee cart came across her desk and she could not get it out of her head.

“It was not in my life plan,” Sam says. “But it’s given me all the things that I love.”

Open Monday to Friday from 7am to 10.30am, The Heron is a meeting point for locals. Downing inherited a crew of loyal regulars when she took over, many of whom stop in daily as part of their routine.

Sam says it has brought more to her life than expected.

"I’ve been doing lots of creative projects over the last few years that take a lot of time and energy and it’s a juggle because a lot of them don’t pay anything," Sam says.

"The coffee cart is a way to do something concrete and to pay the bills. It’s been a nice routine to get up every morning and do something that’s fairly simple and have the rest of the day to be creative."

In addition to the income and grounding routine, the Heron brings in a steady stream of stories.

“I can turn up and receive,” she says. “I feel like I get to receive stories all day, which is pretty amazing, and that feeds my own creative practice.”

NOTE: This is my dream and I have already offered to fill in for Sam at the Heron.

So, Sam's creative practice is really broad. In 2024, her short documentary How I Fell in Love with Grass took out top honours at the LOCALS program of the Castlemaine Documentary Film Festival.

More recently, she’s returned to performance, touring the Body Appliance Revival Experience to Nati Frinj — a surreal movement work based on the motions of household appliances.

“It’s very silly,” she says. “And hilarious. And revolutionary.” 

Her latest work is the Situationist Travel Agency, an interactive performance Downing will run with Louise O'Dwyer during this year’s Castlemaine State Festival from the Market Building.

Described as an “absurd take on a travel agency”, the $15 experience condenses the banality and occasional delight of travel into a live performance, before sending participants out into Castlemaine with a map of another city — Kyoto, Cairo or Tahiti — to follow on foot.

Test runs using a Kyoto street map to get around Castlemaine have been a hoot.

“You’re forced to take a left turn where you might not ordinarily choose to,” she says. “You see the value in things that you might not notice otherwise.”

It’s an idea drawn from Situationist International, a mid-20th century art movement bent on disrupting the everyday experience of urban life, in this case, by getting people to experience Castlemaine as though it were somewhere else entirely. 

Sam suspects the town will be up for it.

“We’re okay with suspending disbelief in Castlemaine,” she says. “It’s how we live.”

Sam’s been here since 2009, drawn in by a derelict but affordable house in Elphinstone. She’s watched the big smoke of Castlemaine grow into what feels like a year-round festival and found community galore when she joined the Mount Alexander Falcons.

At this point in our chat, it’s clear: she’s a joiner. Usually knee-deep in something interesting.

“I realise life works, for me, in projects,” Sam says. “There’s a big one, then a rest-and-recover before the next.

“The Heron is in the morning. That’s the constant.”

❀ Mapping our futures ❀

What do you want Castlemaine to look like in five, ten, or twenty years? And who gets to decide?

Mapping Our Futures is now running at the Castlemaine Library until February 28. It's a community art project inviting locals to share their ideas, stories and hopes for the future of our shire.

Inside the library, a large-scale wall map has transformed the foyer into a creative hub where residents can reflect on what they’d like to see for the region and connect with others.

This Saturday, you can take things a step further at Ideas to Action: Mapping Our Futures Open Space, a free, two-hour workshop designed to turn those contributions into conversations, connections and potential next steps.

Participants will create the agenda and move between small-group discussions about the ideas that matter to them.

At a time when social, economic and environmental challenges can make it hard to fathom what comes next, Mapping Our Futures offers a creative, community-led way to think about the future.

Even my cynical self can see we need this. 

  • Join the Open Space workshop at the Castlemaine Library foyer, Saturday, 10:30 AM - 12:30 PM

  • Drop in to the library during opening hours to see the map and add to it, or contribute online

  • Head along to the project’s closing event, Sat, 28 Feb, 12:00 PM - 2:00 PM

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