It Begins - Ahh the Land
This move has been on the horizon for an awful long time. For too many years I'd fantasised about us relocating up to the Hunter Valley. We've been coming here for decades and just love it. My Dad and his family first lived in Newcastle when immigrating from Holland after the war (Dad worked in the BHP factory), and Lynda's family used to have a dairy farm out near Branxton. So you could say we have roots here. We'd also lived on acres in rural communities before and loved it.
It's easier said than done though, just picking up and moving. We lived on the NSW Central Coast and I was working shift work on Sydney Harbour with the ferries. Lynda was always flat out with her own graphic/web design business and a couple decades flew by as we happily raised our kids and generally made ends meet like everyone else. The last thing we wanted to do was change the kid's school and break their circles of friends. Also Lynda is very close with her family, who lived nearby and were inextricably intertwined with our daily lives. Plus it was just a great place to raise a family back then, being a picturesque sleepy little coastal town.
Still, the idea of one day having a dream home on our own acreage somewhere out in the country kept gnawing away in the back of my mind ...
I won't bore you with details, but eventually the opportunity of voluntary redundancy from the ferries materialised and I decided to make the leap. Bit scary, and it was definitely a roller-coaster ride for a couple years but eventually (miraculously) I managed to fall into my perfect job in Newcastle Harbour. I commuted from the Central Coast for a few years, all the time studying the Hunter Valley real estate market and picking every local's brain I could about the different areas.
In August 2016 we finally began seriously considering a nice little (7 acre) block in Paterson, a gorgeous little country town near Maitland. Beautiful outlook, nice area and the price was ok(ish), but it was pretty slopey and there was a LOT of rock just under the thin soil.
A last minute concerted search the length & breadth of the Hunter Valley ensued, to make sure this was absolutely the best option available for us. That's when a work colleague (thanks Jen) found some obscure add online, about a new 'boutique estate' with 25 acre blocks outside of Branxton. The pricing seemed pretty competitive and the photos showed lots of the lush green rolling hills that we love. It was a bit further out from Newcastle than we'd intended, but it was certainly worth a look.
Lynda & I drove from my work to meet the agent out at the estate, which is called 'Greenlees' and located in Glendon Brook. It took an hour door to door, not too bad since I was commuting an hour & a half already from the Central Coast, and was previously used to the two hour commute each way when working in Sydney.
The nice lady drove us around the new estate and explained all about it. Seems it was two dairy farms which had been cut up into 25 acre mainly cleared lots, with a further 1200 acre parcel of mountainous bush locked away as a private nature reserve for the enjoyment of the estate residents. That got out attention.
She took us to one block that was thirty three misshapen acres. Largely cleared in the lower parts (bushy for the rest), it was reasonably narrow from the valley floor, sloping towards and following a little gully up the slope. It widened out across the whole hill further up and continued to climb steeply all the way to the ridge at the top of the hill. It also backed directly onto the private reserve.
The lady drove us up a dirt road that ran up the hill alongside the block, all the way to the top of the hill. Then she turned down another track that had been cut through the bush into this block, which soon terminated at an amazing lookout with incredible views forever to the north, east and south.
She kept talking to us, but I don't think we heard much else after we saw the breathtaking views.
It was clearly viewed as the runt of the litter, the unwanted bit left over after all the other prime blocks had been carved out. But to us this was the pick of them all. We only wanted enough cleared land for the house, shed and paddocks for a couple horses. Other than that, we would be happy to have the rest as bush to play in. We don't want lots of livestock and paddocks to look after.
Plus with this block backing directly onto the reserve, it made it effectively 1233 acres of beautiful, rugged, mountainous bushland. With gorgeous views in every direction from the bottom of the block as well as from that insane lookout, and all for a reasonable price (far less than the Paterson property), we realised it was a no brainer.
We'd found our dream acreage.
Now, what to put on it ...
It's easier said than done though, just picking up and moving. We lived on the NSW Central Coast and I was working shift work on Sydney Harbour with the ferries. Lynda was always flat out with her own graphic/web design business and a couple decades flew by as we happily raised our kids and generally made ends meet like everyone else. The last thing we wanted to do was change the kid's school and break their circles of friends. Also Lynda is very close with her family, who lived nearby and were inextricably intertwined with our daily lives. Plus it was just a great place to raise a family back then, being a picturesque sleepy little coastal town.
Still, the idea of one day having a dream home on our own acreage somewhere out in the country kept gnawing away in the back of my mind ...
I won't bore you with details, but eventually the opportunity of voluntary redundancy from the ferries materialised and I decided to make the leap. Bit scary, and it was definitely a roller-coaster ride for a couple years but eventually (miraculously) I managed to fall into my perfect job in Newcastle Harbour. I commuted from the Central Coast for a few years, all the time studying the Hunter Valley real estate market and picking every local's brain I could about the different areas.
In August 2016 we finally began seriously considering a nice little (7 acre) block in Paterson, a gorgeous little country town near Maitland. Beautiful outlook, nice area and the price was ok(ish), but it was pretty slopey and there was a LOT of rock just under the thin soil.
A last minute concerted search the length & breadth of the Hunter Valley ensued, to make sure this was absolutely the best option available for us. That's when a work colleague (thanks Jen) found some obscure add online, about a new 'boutique estate' with 25 acre blocks outside of Branxton. The pricing seemed pretty competitive and the photos showed lots of the lush green rolling hills that we love. It was a bit further out from Newcastle than we'd intended, but it was certainly worth a look.
Lynda & I drove from my work to meet the agent out at the estate, which is called 'Greenlees' and located in Glendon Brook. It took an hour door to door, not too bad since I was commuting an hour & a half already from the Central Coast, and was previously used to the two hour commute each way when working in Sydney.
The nice lady drove us around the new estate and explained all about it. Seems it was two dairy farms which had been cut up into 25 acre mainly cleared lots, with a further 1200 acre parcel of mountainous bush locked away as a private nature reserve for the enjoyment of the estate residents. That got out attention.
She took us to one block that was thirty three misshapen acres. Largely cleared in the lower parts (bushy for the rest), it was reasonably narrow from the valley floor, sloping towards and following a little gully up the slope. It widened out across the whole hill further up and continued to climb steeply all the way to the ridge at the top of the hill. It also backed directly onto the private reserve.
The lady drove us up a dirt road that ran up the hill alongside the block, all the way to the top of the hill. Then she turned down another track that had been cut through the bush into this block, which soon terminated at an amazing lookout with incredible views forever to the north, east and south.
She kept talking to us, but I don't think we heard much else after we saw the breathtaking views.
It was clearly viewed as the runt of the litter, the unwanted bit left over after all the other prime blocks had been carved out. But to us this was the pick of them all. We only wanted enough cleared land for the house, shed and paddocks for a couple horses. Other than that, we would be happy to have the rest as bush to play in. We don't want lots of livestock and paddocks to look after.
Plus with this block backing directly onto the reserve, it made it effectively 1233 acres of beautiful, rugged, mountainous bushland. With gorgeous views in every direction from the bottom of the block as well as from that insane lookout, and all for a reasonable price (far less than the Paterson property), we realised it was a no brainer.
We'd found our dream acreage.
Now, what to put on it ...
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