Cam – “I’m originally from New Zealand and I was raised by Mum and my grandparents. It was a fantastic childhood in a very poor part of NZ. South Auckland in the ghettos. That part of NZ in the 80’s was not a desirable place to be but Nan and Pop’s little house was nestled down a long drive which led to this beautiful oasis of veggies, fruit trees, beautiful gardens and gemstones. Pop collected rocks so we were very lucky. Nan, Pop and Mum grew most of our food so throughout our childhood we would go out to the garden to get the spuds and the silverbeet, mandarins from the trees.
In my early 30’s I decided I wanted to grow my own food and get back to that. I moved out to The Hunter Valley after living in Sydney for 10 years and built a little bush shack on a friends property. It was made out of all recycled materials I found on the side of the road. I had a home delivery business of organic products for 7 years in Sydney and driving around the Eastern Suburbs I found everything I needed on the council clean ups. Stained glass windows, work benches and cool old stuff. It was very cold in winter and super hot in summer but so beautiful. It was a bird watchers paradise.
I was out there on my own pretty much for 3 years other than friends dropping by and I thought, I really need a girl. I had a couple of my customers tell me about this girl who worked in the health food store in Bondi. A couple of people tried to set us up but it never happened so it was 2 years before we actually met. “
Nic – “It was us orbiting each other without meeting and then we met. I had just come back from overseas, was on my first shift back and I recognised Cams dog. We had sort of met once before but he didn’t acknowledge me. We had mutual friends.”
Cam – “I thinks that was called shyness.”
Nic – “He came into the shop and I recognised his dog. We got talking and I introduced myself and he’s, ‘Oh, so you are Nicole.’
We organised to meet up and I just wasn’t feeling it so I didn’t go but then I really liked that he took a step back.”
Cam – “I was actually dating another girl at the time and I was speaking to a good friend. She asked what was going on with the girl at the shop that I liked. I said ‘Oh nothing! it kinda just fizzled out.” My friend said “Do you like her?’ and I said ‘Yeah, I really like her’ so she told me to call her right then and there.”
Nic – “I was driving to the desert for my womens circle to make drums out in the Warrumbungles, Coonabarabran. Two weeks prior to this I was thinking about him all the time and had decided on my return I would call him but he called me instead.
I was born and raised in Sydney, lovely childhood, a very close family. I lived with my grandparents on and off. My mum’s actually moving to Lismore soon. She came up for Arlos birthday last week so she wants to be closer to her grandchild.
I did some travelling, worked in the health food shop for 4 years, studied Yoga, went to India and when I came back I knew something big was waiting to happen. When I met Cam I was strongly on a Yoga path to become a teacher. I was a Yoga apprentice but I realised that it wasn’t me.
In that same week Cam and I had our first date and that was it. I made my best friend come as a third wheel as I didn’t want it to be a date even though it was. I drank too much wine because I was so nervous. We had a lot of fun and we’ve been inseparable ever since. It felt really natural and calm from the get go. It’s strange as it felt like we had been together for a really long time. Five months later we conceived Arlo.
Everything has happened so quickly but in times that we’ve felt overwhelmed we keep reminding ourselves that this is everything we’ve ever wanted. To move out of Sydney, to have a baby, to get married, to be together. We were married last November which was planned before we got the nursery. Once we got the nursery we had to renovate and get it ready for the wedding. It was pretty run down. The wedding was a beautiful day because everyone from Sydney came up and we’ve made such good friends here. They all melded together so well. It was perfect.
It was serendipitous how we ended up here. We hadn’t even heard of Clunes. We decided to check it out as it was between Byron and Lismore, a nice place and we did it all remotely. We came up when Arlo was 5 weeks old. After about 5 months we were driving past this place and Cam spoke to Tassie the previous owner. Cam said ‘I don’t want to offend but I’m just curious, are you keeping this place or what’s happening with it?’ Tas said ‘I just decided today that I’m going to leave.’ We spoke to him and after 6 weeks of negotiation here we are.
A few people were interested but the owners picked us because our ideas aligned with the original owners, the Batistuzzi family. They built this place with the nursery and a market garden. You could go around and pick your own veggies. Mrs Batistuzzi made all the chutneys and jams. It was really the heart of the community and that’s what we want to do. We want to cultivate community, provide good food. We want it to be a real hub and keep that family vibe as well. We are a plant nursery. So far we have ferns, natives, hedges and it will also be a market garden where we grow all our own food. There’s a lot of space and we will stock veggie seedlings as well. We are also a produce store with organic produce. We do veggie boxes which is a seasonal mix.
Down the track I will be doing kids workshops here in school holidays and maybe Yoga classes as well. I want to do a mini Earth School. I want to make it so that kids can come one day a week and learn about gardening and earth worms. The space is versatile and what a beautiful place to raise Arlo. He loves it here and so do we.”