Relocation, Relocation, Relocation!

Well, if you have been reading this blog over time, you will have come to understand that life on a broadacre farm in the middle of nowhere didn't end up being the dream life G and I were hoping for! Decisions had to be made! Finally we decided there was nothing more to be done than move away from Morilla and buy a smaller property closer to the city. Call it a failure. Call it a lesson. Call it whatever. After a while 'hanging in there' just makes you look and feel even more of a loser! Time was wasting and we realised we didn't have as much of it to waste as we used to have!

Enter Castle Hill.

We first saw Castle Hill on the internet and both agreed it looked very pretty. Tall trees, river at the bottom of the block, undulating land, lovely lake like dam at the front of the property, established vineyard and olive grove, pretty little rammed earth cottage overlooking the river. Pretty and only 40 acres- managable without becoming an administration hassle, but still plenty of room for our menagerie and space between us and our neighbours. Seemed to be just the ticket for us. So we went and took a look. But this time we went with both eyes wide open and a list of must haves and preferables.

The list was as follows:

MUST HAVES

• Located within one hour of the city
• Within 10 minutes of a reasonable sized town with a population of at least 2,000
• good and varied employment prospects in town
• potential for us to work in town
• variety of people in the community doing a variety of different activities (ie not mostly farming, or mostly mining etc- variety being the key word!)
• good rainfall (over 600mls per annum)
• good water supply on property
• surrounding towns with places of interest to visit
• a good pub or restaurant within a half hour driving distance

PREFERABLES

• undulating well treed countryside
• good, ready to move into house
• no very close neighbours, but neighbours close enough if needed
• sealed road
• potential to start business on property

What we knew we wouldn't get but would have liked:

• mild summer weather- we were spoiled at Morilla- even on a hot day the sea breeze came in off the ocean by early afternoon and cooled things down. Further north, within one hour of the city, we knew we were back in the hot zone!

Now, we had to satisfy all the MUST HAVES before we would consider the place, and all of these were well satisfied on first inspection. Castle Hill is 50 minutes from the city outskirts and 1 hour and 10 minutes to the city centre. It has a couple of mines for us to work at, many small and middle sized farms, and all the services that supply these two industries. The population is just over 2,000 but it has been designated a 'super town' and will have government investment to help it grow and develop. The new property is less than 10 minutes from the town. So far, so very good!

The rainfall at the new property is 650mls, plus there is a fresh water bore with a huge output and a good sized dam that has an underground stream flow into it for most months of the year. Very good water supplies, not to mention the river at the bottom of the block. Again- things looked promising.

The local pub does not look all that great- a bit of a drunk man's hole really, but the historic Inn down the road 20 kms is superb and serves excellent food. It has a lovely beer garden on the river. There are several good cafes, restaurants and wineries  in neighbouring towns, all within a half hour drive- lovely.

 And the city is an hour away! We can be out to dinner in the city and home by 10 pm. Things were looking very good indeed. The 'Must Haves'  had all been met.

Next the PREFERABLES:

• well the land is beautifully undualting with the most magnificent tall trees. We both absolutely love the look of the countryside- one of the things we loved about Morilla- it wasn't dead flat and boring.

• the sweet little rammed earth house was ready to move straight into and had the loveliest kitchen and bathroom- luxurious really for such a small cottage. The views over the river from the back verandah are spectacular!

The nearest neighbours are at the end of the road- we can see their house light off in the distance. We have neighbours across the river, but so far they have been quiet and we hardly notice them. We cannot even see their house for the trees along the river. They are probably more disturbed by our silly barking Shepherd, Holly, who barks at everything- such as a beetle crawling past.

We did not get the sealed road. We have 4kms of dirt to our house. However, there is light at the end of that tunnel. The shire have just finished upgrading the river crossing at the end of our road and plan to reopen it in a few months, so we will only be on 2 kms of dirt and be right in town once we cross the river! So that is great news too. One day they will seal our road, and after Morilla, a few kms of dirt is nothing anyway!

As for the business- well, it already has a vineyard that produces 3,500 bottles of wine a year, and a small olive grove. Neither of which we would have chosen as a business if we had a choice but since they came with the property we will give them a go. I doubt we will produce wine or olives for retail sale, but we will do something with them- there is no money in such a small grove of olives or vineyard! Personally, our aim is to start a small dairy (sheep, goat and cow), a farm shop selling our meat and vegetables and eggs and other local produce from other local farmers, a small cafe, and guest accommodation. I intend to plant out a magnificent country garden that will be a sight to behold in a few years! We are going biodynamic and organic, having no interest in pumping mass amounts of chemicals onto our property or food. This is something we could not have done on 2,500 acres!

The future looks a lot brighter from where we are sitting now and means we can do the things we are really interested in and not have to live our lives to suit the property we were living on. We are small farmers. Lifestyle farmers. Not broadacre farmers. We do not follow the phiolosophy of broadacre farmers. We believe the future of food production does not lie with the production of stronger herbicides and pesticides, buying bigger farms and bigger machinary, factory farming and producing genetically modified grains. We think the future lies in the past- small holdings growing organic food and raising well cared animals in as natural an environment as possible all for local consumers in the local marketplace. Small. Organic. Low food miles. Local. That is where we are heading! Watch this space!