Julian Lopez loves dirt – the dirt out the front of his freshly built home in Wagga Wagga and under the tyres of his mountain bike while exploring the area’s growing number of trails.
“We moved into our house earlier this year and all the landscape gardeners were booked up for months, so we’ve decided to create the garden ourselves,” Julian says.
But with ‘so many nice things to do’ in the Riverina district of New South Wales, gardening hasn’t been the top priority.
Julian and his wife Liliana lived in Sydney for a decade and started looking regionally when they wanted to buy a house to raise a family.
“You’d have to be a millionaire to afford what we really wanted,” Julian says.
Wagga Wagga, half-way between Melbourne and Sydney, topped their regional wish-list. Liliana was able to transfer her job with a retail optometrist and Julian found work as a manager with a livestock equipment supplier through a local recruiting company.
“I used to spend one to two hours a day commuting and now it’s only 15 minutes past paddocks, cows and great views,” Julian said.
“We’ve got more time, a new house and an international-standard cycling complex being built in Wagga.”
The garden may have to wait a bit longer.
