We've had this dream for 13 years!

Since we've been married we've always dreamed of living on acreage.  Daniel grew up on acreage with loads of room to play and build cubbies, toast marshmallows around the bonfire, and drive an old bomby car around...  This is the lifestyle we want for our family - well maybe minus hooning around in a bomby car ;)  It may be a buggy with roll bars instead!

After years of looking on and off and dreaming, and several months of serious looking and trekking through overgrown acres, in November 2011 we (Daniel - credit where credit is due) finally found our block!  

Sadly for the owners, but fortunately for us, circumstances had led to a mortgagee in possession sale which had no bids at auction.  We had been looking at 1 acre blocks, but our block is 3 1/4 acres and was in the same price bracket (especially after Daniel's orthsome negotiating skills on the purchase price).  All the 1 acre blocks we saw had their building envelopes next to each other.  We didn't want to buy acreage to see in our neighbours windows!  So we were really excited to find 3 1/4 acres we could afford.

It is not all leisurely strolling.  The front is sloping up which levels out at the top and has a gentler slope down to the back of the block.  So the cheaper price means not all the land is flat, but that's fine by us.  We love the character of it, and the sense of discovery as you come across little hideaways and potential campfire spots down the slope.  We have around an acre of flatish land, and the rest provides privacy and distance from neighbours.  We're sort of on the top of a hill, and there's only one other block up the hill from us (higher again), but we have a lovely grove of trees between us, and our neighbours are really friendly so we're happy to share our hill with them :)

The kids want dogs, cats, goats, roosters, piglets... basically our own petting zoo.  But for now we'll start with a house, then chickens, fruit trees & a vegie patch, eventually a fence and then we'll see about the rest of the animals. Nature has provided kangaroos which amazingly are quite tame and you can get within a couple of metres and stare eachother down, the odd hare, a green tree frog - which may have relocated after it was loved so much by the kids :) and loads of chattering birds...  (thankfully no cockatoos that we've heard... but that's another story!)

Every time we go to the land I feel so at home.   

Our acreage dream has begun...

We never did get a sold sticker :(

 

The agent didn't remove the sign so after a few months the kids were happy to do it!