It never occurred to me at the time. I thought I was set, knew it all. There was no need to change anything in my life, I was doing just fine.

I was drifting along, healthy, happy and enjoying the delights and the adventure of grandparenthood which had just begun. I believed that, at my age and stage, I’d learned everything I needed to know to make the most of my cruisy life by the sea in Cronulla. 

How wrong I was.

At the same time, hubby was champing at the bit to get out of Sydney, after a lifetime of living there. He wanted to try something new. Retirement wasn’t shaping up to be all that exciting. The plan in his mind took shape: let’s sell up and move to the country. Or at least, to a semi rural place, with a bit of land to play with.

I wasn’t keen. I thought we had a great lifestyle. Besides, what would our children think of this? They’d lose their babysitters for one thing.

Compromise was the answer. I decided to give it a go, and if it didn’t work, well, we’d move back to Sydney.

From the day we left Cronulla to start life again on a small six acre property on Cambewarra Mountain, I learned so much.

For a start, I had never driven on country, or mountain roads. Ever. I’d always let hubby do that sort of driving, and yet here I was now, regularly taking on Kangaroo Valley, Moss Vale and Jamberoo roads, without a care in the world. I have to laugh though. My caution in the early days saw me driving at snail pace, irritating the local tradies no end if they happened to be stuck behind me on those roads. In my defence though, I did pull over when I could to let them pass. 

The learning curve in the garden was the next adventure. I was previously a potted colour sort of gardener. Pots and annuals were the length and breadth of my gardening, no lifting, no digging, not much of any skill required. We had lived in an apartment in Cronulla and most of my time was spent in the surf, not our postage stamp sized garden, which looked after itself.

The Berry property we moved into had obviously been landscaped many years ago, but the gardens had been long neglected, and needed a great deal of refurbishment. Over four years I learned how to use a mattock, and a whippersnipper, build garden beds, ride on an atv, trim hedges and trees, grow an almost industrial sized veggie garden, make a pile burn, plant, weed, and raise my own plants from seeds. We also joined Berry Garden Club and attended garden Festivals with relish. Who would have thought? Certainly not me. 

Because of the isolation of living up on the escarpment, I started to bake as a bit of a hobby. This led me to trying my hand at cheese making, yoghurt making, bread making. I had never done anything like this in my life, and how rewarding it was. Fortunately, the effort of daily labouring on the property allowed us to eat all these baked and homemade goodies without the results showing on the hips and thighs. 

And this particular learning curve led me to start entering local annual agricultural shows. Which I am still doing , here in Kiama. What joy it brings to enter a cake or a bloom into your local Show, and wait excitedly to see if you won a prize! I love it.

One of the most interesting things I learned in this period was how to cohabit with animals that were there on my property way before me. Wombats, snakes, king parrots and rats being the animals in question. 

Wombats are delightful, seemingly slow moving until you actually see them running, and they take a path which does not divert. If you plant something in their path, they do not go round it. They trample it. I learned this very early on in my gardening. At first I was unimpressed, but after a while, just had to live with it. At least the veggie patch was safeguarded behind timber and wire walls. 

Pete the python lived under our elevated bedroom , and regularly dropped his skin around the place. He kept down the mice for us, and got quite plump. One day he was curled up on a hedge surrounding our little pond. He looked for all the world like a tyre just lying there. You should have heard the screams when my granddaughter went to investigate! Poor Pete, we didn’t see him sun baking there again.

The front step to our house was also a favoured place for a red bellied black snake to enjoy some warmth. As you can imagine, this wasn’t an acceptable situation for us. RB lived  in the drain close by, and emerged whenever he needed some rays. We simply put closer knit wire over the drain, which encouraged him to sun himself further away from the front door. So we were all happy.

Red and green king parrots regularly frequented our deck, and the window ledges. I suspect the previous owner had fed them , and so seed bells became an adornment. 

The parrots were so enjoyable. Unlike our crazy magpie from my earlier story, who lived down the paddock and used me for target practice three months of the year. I adapted to this by just waiting out those months, and wearing armour of big hat, sunglasses and long sleeves.

Possibly the most enriching thing I learned about  in these four years was horse and donkey behaviour. Our property was next door to one homing a very elderly ex show jumper named Cherry, a pony called Boston, and four donkeys, (a mum, twin girls, and a boy). We left our adjoining paddock gates open on request so that these adorable creatures had more room to roam and graze. 

We then added to the horsey population by taking in a rescue horse Nina, a nineteen year old beauty, also an ex show jumper. And that’s when I found out that horses are just giant sized dogs. Nina would follow me around the paddock as I pulled fireweed, and she loved a good pat and a scratch behind her ears. She was so elegant, so graceful , so soft.

Just watching these magical animals in their day to day behaviour was a delight. When they galloped in the paddock, it was hypnotising to me, a city girl who’d always wanted to ride but never did. Nina couldn’t be ridden due to a back injury many years ago. 

Feeding the donkeys, which we often did as a favour when our neighbours were away, was a military operation. Mumma was a viper who ate her hay, then kicked and bit her children in order to eat their hay. And so strategy was required , using timing and multiple buckets. We won, but it took a lot of thinking about. 

Those years were a time of immense pleasure, and immense learning. We had attempted a completely different type of living, and found we absolutely loved it. We achieved so much , learned so much, provided our children and grandchildren with a taste of country style living which they love as well. Many friends were made on the mountain, and we still have them, though we don’t live there any longer.

The most interesting thing to me in looking back to that time is that my whole outlook on life changed for the better. Leaving the Big Smoke was the best thing we did, but I had to be cajoled into doing it. 

These days I appreciate that every day is a possible adventure, and there is always something new to learn.