Give Spicers Retreats co-founder Jude Turner just one day to show off her beloved “big sky” country of south-east Queensland’s Scenic Rim, and the eight-hour guided tour doesn’t disappoint.

First we bump across rough back roads leading out of her Spicers Hidden Vale property in Grandchester, Lockyer Valley, headed towards her Spicers Mount Mistake homestead and passing grand old shuttered Queenslanders, so perfectly adapted to the heat. White cockatoos screech overhead.