I always say to people I must have watched way too much 'Escape to Country' or 'Mcleods Daughters' to warrant the move down here. We gave up our cushy Melbourne existence and wanted something that felt a little more real. A place where the air is clean and the sky is so open you feel you could touch the sun. 

I think it all started after having our little guy, Gus, back in 2011. I took a year off my Marketing job and became a stay at home mum and started spending a lot of time on my own. Sure I had friends but with the sheer exhaustion of a newborn who never slept you don't look to friends to help you out in your time of need you look to family to pitch in and help out.

The trouble was - we didn't have any family in Melbourne. Mine all lived over West in the sunny climes of Perth and Jason's family were in that mysterious place called Tasmania. 

In those first couple of years I started to regularly visit Tasmania. I stayed with my in-laws on their farm in Cressy and slowly started developing a real appreciation for the slower pace of life. The simplicity of farm living started to have a real appeal. 

Once I started back at my workplace and the juggle of being a working Mum with the childcare drop offs, rushing to find a parking space near the tramline, tramming it for 45 minutes crushed into a tin can and racing to work, only to be late - again and again. Then dealing with the multitude of sickness that Gus seemed to pick up every second week from his days at daycare and then of course pass onto the rest of us just seemed ridiculous. Once I had developed Pneumonia for the second time and had to take a week off work and looking after Gus -  I felt so guilty. Both as a Mum and as someone who tried to be a dedicated career woman. I felt like I just couldn't get my shit together on any front. I just wasn't being the best I could be for my child or my work commitments. I was failing both - badly. 

So my husband and I looked to Tasmania and decided - now its time. Time to take that leap into the unknown. For a man who had worked so hard to leave this island and to make it in another city -  why were we returning? And why were we changing our life so drastically and buying a farm?

For starters I just couldn't picture our son growing up in Melbourne. I grew up by the beach in Perth and sure it was a much bigger place than Tasmania it still felt small by Melbourne standards. I didn't want him growing up too fast. I remember standing on the platform at the train station and watching all the kids catching the train and thought they are just too little. I watched them going to the Westfield Shopping centres as their form of entertainment and I just didn't want that for him. Going to those centres myself frustrated me. It was all about consuming and then consuming some more. I thought there had to be something better than this. 

We both felt we weren't really living back in Melbourne. We were just exisiting. We lived without family, we barely saw friends as our pace of life just didn't let up. We felt we were missing out on our son growing up surrounded by family. Somewhere for him and us to belong. We wanted to get living. So we looked and we found our piece of life. And guess where we found it. Right around the corner from Jason's family farm. 

Crazy how you have to go out and disappear into the world for a while only to find your way back home.