Our Story

Justin, Kylie and family, April 2010.

In April 2006, a week before the birth of our second child, we moved from an inner city Toowoomba suburb to an 80 year old farm cottage atop the Great Dividing Range just outside the whistlestop village of Hampton. Our reasoning behind the move was, and remains, straightforward: we’re in search of the good life. For us that means living simply but richly, having time for our kids, producing food in harmony with the seasons, and enjoying the company of a vibrant local community.

A productive smallholding:

Nestled amongst orchards, grazing paddocks and remnant eucalypt forest, Thistlebrook is just under two acres of former dairy land set 750m above sea level in the hills north of Toowoomba. Our area is unusual this far north in that it’s one of the few areas in Queensland that can be fairly described as cool temperate. Winters bring an average of 30-40 frosts, some as low as -10C, but summers are bearable and rainfall averages about 1000mm. In other words, an excellent climate for growing plants.

The property is being established as an intensive smallholding with the long term aim being to supply most of the family’s food, with some surplus to trade locally. So far, we’ve established a highly productive vegie garden, a berry patch, espalier apple orchard, stonefruit orchard, edible woodland and have dozens of other food producing plant scattered around the garden. We raise rare breed chickens (for eggs, meat and manure), and have plans to rotation graze small livestock and keep bees.

Our intention is to manage the land as sustainably as possible. To this end we do lots of recycling and composting, returning the decomposed humus to the soil. We abhor the use of toxic sprays, and prefer organic practices when necessary. Despite a break in the drought in January 2011, water remains a serious long term concern, so we irrigate with harvested rainwater, and our have installed a “Biolytix” wastewater system that recycles all the black and grey water from the house for use on lawns and fruit trees.

We feel very thankful to inhabit such a beautiful, bountiful place.