What can you tell us about yourself? I’m an active person who thrives having a busy lifestyle, balancing work, raising two energetic little kids (two and five years old) with my husband Matt, managing our home business and a bit of a horse fanatic. We’re originally from Sydney and came out for work with the intention of being here for a year as a break from the madness of city life, but the lifestyle and opportunity to live on our own property on the outskirts of town ended up taking us on quite a different journey. Dubbo was the perfect place for us to settle, start a family and we wanted to get married at home, which led to the building of The Barn at Cadagi Farm and has now become a successful business for us, along with horse agistment and Hipcamp farmstay.

What’s the best way to start the day? The morning farm animal rounds with my kids in tow never gets old. They love to help prep feed, ask questions about absolutely everything, they love to check the kitchen garden for fruit or veges ready to pick, and it’s just such a wholesome start to the day.

What do you love about the region? I love that we didn’t know what awaited when we arrived in Dubbo, and we settled easily into bustling regional lifestyle. We established great community connections and found it to be a place of a lot of opportunity if you have a bit of an entrepreneurial spirit. We’ve loved the journey of creating a business and seeing the scope of opportunity to work with the community and quality local vendors, so it’s been incredibly satisfying to see.

What are some of your favourite things to do? We’re very family-orientated and love to host big gatherings. We have a lot of fun planning “farm Festivus” weekends with family and friends, everyone staying on site with days filled with kids running about, fishing and yabbying in the dam, setting up go-kart time trials, evenings around the campfire, and just having fun on the farm.