Hello – or G’day, as we say down under. My name is Marianna and I live in New South Wales, Australia, on a huge ranch called The Rain River Land. It’s a beautiful area with fantastic scenery. I live here with my husband Joe and our two children, Patrick, 11, and Abby, 8.
We have lived on this ranch for several years and love our healthy lifestyle. We have 70,000 hectares of land, so the children have lots of space to run around and enjoy the peace and quiet. The air is clean and fresh and we produce a lot of our own food so we are sure that what we eat is fresh. There’s a lot of hard work to do running a ranch, but we don’t mind.
Of course, there are some negative aspects to live out here. There are often droughts in Australia, and sometimes we can’t grow any crops for months. We feel isolated sometimes, too, especially since the nearest neighbours are almost 100 km away. Another problem is that many things are not as easily available as in the city. There are no local facilities such as schools, supermarkets and shops, and if we are ill we have to call the flying doctor.
Although life here can be difficult, we wouldn’t change it for the world.”