‘Try before you buy’ is an adage which can well serve city-siders looking to #makethemove to regional Australia, according to Camilla Staff.
Camilla grew up near Bondi in Sydney and never pictured herself anywhere else.
But that changed when she met her now-husband Tim Beck at university, who was keen to get back on the land in Goulburn after completing his agriculture degree.
For more than two years after uni, Camilla made the weekend trip between Sydney and Goulburn on the Southern Tablelands, getting a taste of farm life.
Together, Camilla and Tim began leasing land in the region, running a sheep and cattle enterprise. Camilla’s business studies have also come in handy for their small business, which makes bedding for poultry from wood shavings.
“By the time I decided to leave my Sydney job and move, it was really quite easy,” says Camilla, who scored a position with Regional Development Australia Southern Inland, based in Goulburn.
“I’d been coming to Goulburn regularly for a few years and had fallen in love with the region and the countryside.
“This is an ideal location for me – still close to Sydney to visit family, only 90 kilometres from Canberra and close to the coast and the snow,” she says.
Joining netball and tennis teams helped her build a local network of friends, and her mates from Sydney are regular visitors.
“My friends are always looking to come down for a weekend to escape the city. They love it. We have so much to offer here.”
