One year ago today we moved out of the suburbs and on to a farm. It wasn't something we were looking for, we wanted to stay in the house we were renting near(ish) the beach, it was a great house with awesome neighbours, but the owners needed to move back into the house.
The town I live in has the lowest rental vacancy rate in all of Australia and is amongst the lowest in the world. We were worried we would have to move away from our community of friends and take our kids out of their school.
I put up a post on a private rental facebook group and we were asked if we would consider a farm house in the suburb we now live in. I cautiously said yes as I'd looked at a couple of farm houses and they were absolutely awful, fibro shacks with no heating or cooling, both of which are essential in the region I live in, especially if the house is made of fibro.
I went out to have a look at the house and was blown away, there are farm houses and then there are houses that happen to be on farms. I loved the house immediately, we signed a lease and moved in!
The night skies out here are incredible, we're only 20 minutes drive from our old home, but we're further away from the light pollution of the suburbs. I was able to photograph the milky way from our old back yard, but out here is next level.
Since moving out here we've been fortunate enough to witness the Aurora Australis (southern lights) quite a few times, it is nice to be able to take a few steps outside and take some photos of it!
We're also fortunate enough to have a vast variety of wildlife that visits or lives on the farm. We've got red-tailed black cockatoos, Australian ringneck parrots, owls, phascogale(an Australian version of a squirrel but it is carnivorous), quokkas(on the ridge near us), quoll, antechinus, bandicoot and many other animals.
We've now been here for a year, I'd have a very hard time moving back into the suburbs if I had to. We're even more determined to buy our own small farm.
Over the last year we've established a new veggie garden, we're currently growing 4 varieties of tomatoes (harvesting about 1kg / 2.2 pounds per day), cucumber, asparagus, a few varieties of pumpkin, purple beans, 2 varieties of corn, coriander, kafir lime, green onions, zucchini, lemon grass and many other things! We've also got a few chickens, they give us 5-6 eggs per day.
We absolutely love living on the farm. I'm working on a few trap / trail cameras to try to capture some photos of the phascogale & bandicoot.
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Definitely looks like you have picked up a great spot! @consciouscat check out the black cockatoos we do not see them that often in south east Queensland.
Ooooooooh. Paul must love some very cool to see all those gorgeous animals 😍 Wonderful!
I grew up in South East Queensland, never saw black cockatoos until I went to Sydney, used to see them around the National Park.
Indeed rare in SEQ, we saw them 2 years ago over a week in our local nature reserve. Some locals reckon they eat an area out then do not return for 10 years.
Looks wonderfull, cheers !
Paul, this is an amazing spot. Wow! It wonderful that you found a place in the country and are still close enough to your old place. Love all the wildlife and what a blessing to get to see and photograph the skies like that.
I can only imagine how much better astrophotography is without light pollution
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