Eighteen months ago Vanessa and Tony Brunton took a personal life-changing decision to leave Townsville with their two young children Josh (6), and Chaney (8). They came to the Hinterland and set up a dwarf citrus and nut tree farm in the Obi Obi Valley west of Mapleton.
Vanessa with some of her dwarf fruit tree stock
Why did you come here?
We visited Flaxton 15 years ago when I came down here to do some modelling. My husband and I said then that when we retire this is where we would come because it’s so lush and green … it’s just beautiful. I was doing real estate in Townsville for ten years and Tony was working almost seven days a week. We’d built eight houses in eight years and my son kept saying to me when can we stay in one house.
One day we came home and said we can keep doing this for another ten years or we can move and have another life where we can spend more time with our children. They’re only with you for such a short time, I really think you need to be there for them. So Tony and I flew down here, stayed for a week and drove all around and found this property - 50 acres backing onto the Obi Creek. It had all the infrastructure – dams, fenced paddocks, the nursery, pumps, a large shed, a main house.
The other thing I really love here are the seasons. In Townsville it’s just hot and hotter. Here it’s lovely to light the fire in winter and you can look outside in the morning and see the frost, white on the backs of my lowline cows. I love Spring too and of course Autumn when all the leaves drop.
I just looked at the opportunities of what I had here and I thought, what can I do that will keep me at home so that I will have that contact with my children and still allow me to be involved with people.
I had read an article on dwarf fruit trees and I contacted the man who had the franchise and so I started the dwarf mangoes and the avocadoes, oranges and apples. And then I started to get into more exotic things. I am also doing the markets on Saturday mornings at Yandina and on Sunday at Maleny. And I’m finding that in gardening, the more you talk to people the more you learn from each other.
Vanessa and her 'pet' chooks
What did you change to come here?
I’ve come from high heels to gum boots and I love it. I used to love shopping but now I would rather be in the chook pen or out with my cows in the paddock than being at Sunshine Plaza. The things that I’ve done in the past have got me to where I am now. I did modelling when I was younger, worked for Westpac Bank for eight years, managed bridal shops and jeans shops and done all those things and always been people oriented. Real estate I love but it wasn’t fair to my children and I wanted to create the ideal environment for my children.
My husband and I work very well together. He helps me load the plants, slash the paddocks and spray the cattle. But he also flies up and down the east coast operating cranes on the wharves. Then he might be home for a month and a half, and that’s when I pull out my list!
My kids both go to Mapleton School and I when I thought of all that we had here I thought it would be great to set up a community garden. So, I put in for a grant at Sunshine Coast Council for a community kitchen garden and orchard. It was approved and I was ecstatic because we got $4,500. So now we can create a 400 square metre area where we can have chooks, water gardens and butterfly gardens, and the orchard and a pizza oven, and where the kids can grow their own produce for the tuck shop.
What will keep you here?
I don’t ever see me leaving this place. This is it. To have this little area that’s all your own with no-one looking in on you, and you can have all your family and friends and go down to the creek and swim in the Obi, go off to Kenilworth and the cheese factory or to Maleny or Noosa beach, which is only half an hour away. It’s ideal.
Coming here has taught us so much about animal husbandry … the cattle and the horses … just being out on the land… and seeing the reaction on my kids faces when we plant vegies together.
We’ve been here for a year and a half and within six months of us leaving Townsville my parents had sold up there too after 30 years, and now they are in Palmwoods and loving it. Although I have only been here a short time, from what I see it’s just a fantastic community spirit. And to have that in these times, I think is important particularly for young people and you just don’t have that in the big towns.
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