My wife being more of a country girl than I am a country boy , always felt that it would be pleasant to have a rural place . which would give us something to do in our retirement . She thought a farm , but there are lines that have to be drawn. I could not envisage her looking after the chooks , or myself looking after sheep and cows. Ventures with ostriches or alpacas were well beyond us too . So it came down to finding a bush block that could take a bit of improvement without too much cost or effort , in an area close enough to our Sydney base to get there easily .

Of course the asking price had to remain within our limits , so there was much searching of real estate columns in newspapers to find something suitable , especially as we wished to be within striking distance of my parent's home up the coast . As usual , the descriptions of the qualities of the available properties was somewhat exaggerated , and it was obvious that the search would be lengthy However , we had plenty of time to find something , so we planned the search over quite a long period of time .

This is an abbreviated version of that search , in which there were many viewings of lots of similar places with similar problems .

We had two staging points to work from . My parents were settled in Tanilba Bay a part of Port Stephens , just up the coast from Newcastle , NSW . Striking out from there , we moved north and to the west. One block we looked at was possibly a great haven for a goat. I use the singular here , as I am not sure that , even give the specie's ability to survive on a minimal amount of natural fodder, it would still have had to struggle to get enough , and yet it would have had to expend maximum energy climbing to forage around the mountain behind the rather dingy house already existing there . Cross that one off , just like so many other rundown rural properties for sale , We preferred to be able to build for ourselves.

A bit further up the highway , and directly opposite the parents' Tanilba block over the sweep of Port Stephens was North Arm Cove. An interesting place , where the front of the block faced the Pacific Highway , and the back of the block trailed off into the waters of the bay. Rather mucky and definitely tidal . Perhaps we could have made a sort of canal area from which to launch our small runabout to motor a long distance across the bay to Tanilba. Yet it no longer remained a possibility when we found that buyers were not permitted to build a house on it , merely to camp there . Not being Rechabites living in tents , we decided against it .

The next area surveyed was first westward , then north , once again not all that far from the Tanilba place if you flew with the crows directly west from there . Pleasant to see the vineyards , and land in that area looked much more satisfactory on the western slopes of the ranges Good green grassland , especially one block set in a valley between two arms of the the range , Obviously , however , in the back blocks there was no garbage service , for in the dry creek bed not far off the road and right next to the best house site , somebody , who apparently spent their life eating baked beans , jam ( with bread perhaps ? ) and tinned fruit , had left the rusting empty containers in a huge pile.

That might possibly have been remedied , but on the very hot day that we went there , it also became obvious that it was quite dangerous bush fire country , with a very limited exit path from the valley .No good to us then , and nothing else in the area that was of much interest at all .

Our second staging point , just outside Wauchope , was Huntingdon , itself a beautiful area where my son lives , right on the Hastings River , Alas , the place is fine , but the Price Is Not Right . It was , however a nice place to relax while we drove further up the coast .

That coast road, by the way has some remarkably interesting names -- Cooloongolook , Wang Wauk , Possum Brush , together with names like that of one of our poets -- Kendall , or takeovers from Britain , like Kew . There was one spot ( unavailable alas ) that I still dream of , near Cooloongolook .

So , further up the coast from Wauchope we went -- reaching pretty well what we considered to be our distance limit when we reached Kempsey . On the first occasion we went there we stayed in a motel just south of Kempsey , and explored what was available on the way to Crescent Head . Again , Crescent Head was a great place , but expensive . The area of land between Kempsey and Crescent Head was too similar to all that we had seen before , and not all that attractive from the viewpoint of scenic beauty.

Then we found a most interesting advertisement One hundred acres for well within our price range . This had to be checked out , and so the final stage of our search began .