A Place in the Auvergne Recommends

My wife being Australian and having three Australian passport holding kids from 2.5 to nearly 7, I am always keen to find good farm blogs from Australia, to help keep the Australian in them alive and well, given we live in rural France.

So I am delighted to recommend Bredbo Valley View Farm, in New South Wales, Australian, which was brought to my attention by farmer/blogger Martyn. (Martyn has also sent me some great recommendations which I hope to post shortly.)

Sustainable - Ethical - Local – Valley View Farm is a small family farm featuring a rustic old tumbled down cottage on the plains of the Southern Tablelands, filled with animals both big and small – the cottage that is!.

Here's what Martyn has to say about his blog and farm:

I grew up in the Army, following Dad from posting too posting, 11 schools in 10 years. When he discharged we settled in the hinterland of the Gold Coast. My parents found a beautiful old dairy farm tucked away in a green valley above a crystal clear mountain creek and I lived there until I joined the Army.

I love the outdoors, I love the solitary, the feeling of self and the isolation of farm life.

My wife had a different up bringing, she is the youngest daughter of German immigrants, grew up in the South Australian outback and loved having her family around.

Farming is something that we both talked about and always wanted to do.

Around 2000 we started looking to move into the country, but as Australian real estate prices skyrocketed and rural property prices exploded we began to worry it would become way too expensive. So we jumped in boots and all. In hind site we probably shouldn't have bought a place in the middle of a drought - but hey, it was cheap.

So for the last eighteen months it's been adventure after adventure. We usually have more animals in the house then humans, it's getting that bad I have started calling the house the Barn.

The kids love the adventure, the wife loves the freedom and I love getting up early and fixing electric fences.

So what did we do on our farm?

When we started we had the brilliant idea of breeding free range rare breed pigs and growing heritage vegitables. We started with six pigs - I now have eighty, we have 15 hectares of oats, recently acquired 40 sheep and have been given three goats. The fun never stops.

Our Blog is a diary of our daily adventures, our ideas, hopes and thoughts.

A Place in the Auvergne
A Place in My Country
Ian Walthew


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