Get a life: Australia’s seven top tree change towns
Where to move and have your house paid off in 14 years? These country towns hit the sweet spot for income, affordability, schools and vitality.
Wages are generally higher in the city, but it’s relative. The Regional Australia Institute has a handy web tool showing how long it takes to pay off an average house in a local government area on an average wage. For example, in Brisbane it will take 32 years. In Moonee Valley, in Melbourne’s west, it is 48 years. In Parramatta, Sydney’s geographical centre, it’s a whopping 65 years. Compare that to the bush. The institute has crunched the numbers using Census data from across Australia to help us come up with some attractive places for a tree change for people aged 30 to 39. Factors taken into consideration include average income, cost of housing, schools and cultural vitality. For more information: regionalaustralia.org.au/home/move
NEW NORFOLK, TAS
Population 6000 (10,000 in Derwent Valley LGA)
Median house price $270,000 (LGA)
Average income $51,000 (LGA)
Years to pay off house 19
The name New Norfolk, a sleepy town nestled in a verdant valley on the banks of the Derwent, is invariably associated with another: Willow Court. For all its quaint charm, oast houses and other historic buildings, the stain of this mental institution, whose beguiling name belies a sad, brutal history dating back to convict times, overshadowed the town long after the asylum’s closure in 2000. Sometime in the mid-2000s, though, mainlanders in search of a tree change arrived, unaware or unconcerned about the stigma of the old, abandoned asylum. Here was a rural idyll, 35km northeast of Hobart, with house prices that had, thanks to local prejudice, remained largely unaffected by the nearby capital’s property booms.
Sydney chef Rodney Dunn and his wife Severine Demanet were among the first wave of new arrivals. The couple chose an old school house at nearby Lachlan to create a cooking school that would become a major tourism drawcard.
Former West Australians-via-Sydney Adi and Madeline Ruiz (pictured above) were lured to the town in 2018 by the property prices, buying a three-bedroom home for half the price of a comparable house in Hobart. “Home ownership just wasn’t on the radar in Sydney and even in Hobart prices are pretty expensive, but what we could get for our money out here was fantastic,” Adi, 41, explains.
The couple, with 18-month-old Ruby and another child on the way, love the ready access to the bush, including nearby Mt Field National Park, and the proximity to Hobart, where Adi works in hospitality for the Museum of Old and New Art. “The commute is nothing – it used to take me twice as long to get from Bondi into the CBD,” he says.
And Willow Court? The abandoned buildings are being repurposed. Rodney Dunn has opened a top-flight eatery in one of the old asylum buildings, a project Adi assisted as beverage manager before joining MONA. Dunn plans a new edible garden in the old walled exercise yard. Art groups have taken overall charge of the precinct; other buildings are being developed for a rum distillery, tasting room, bar, kitchen, function centre and bond store. In town, specialty shops selling antiques, books and wine have sprung up. – Matthew Denholm
ROCKHAMPTON, QLD
Population 50,000 (82,000 LGA)
Median house price $254,000 (LGA)
Average wage $66,000 (LGA)
Years to pay off house 14
Rockhampton, the unofficial capital of Central Queensland, has always had attitude. Situated on the banks of the Fitzroy River, 600km north of Brisbane, it was first settled in 1853 and within a few years was overrun with prospectors when gold was discovered in the region. By 1970, Rockhampton had the largest concentration of beef cattle in Australia, earning it the crown “beef capital”. Today you still drive past giant concrete statues of cattle when you enter town, but modern Rocky is a hub of diversification and energy, foodies and fitness gurus.
Thomas Gardiner, 30, born and raised in Brisbane, took a leap of faith five years ago and landed in Rocky to work as a town planner for the Rockhampton Regional Council. “I was very keen to get out of Brisbane and try my luck in a regional area,” Gardiner says. “For my career I tell everybody it was the best decision I ever made.” In 2018, he was named Australia’s Young Planner of the Year by Planning Institute Australia.
Three years ago he met his partner, Wenonah Barber, 28, a speech pathologist who moved to Rocky from Toowoomba, west of Brisbane. It now takes them two minutes to drive home from work. They love the lack of crowds, and the cost of living – by Gardiner’s estimate at least half that of southern capitals. And the food scene is booming. “The one thing we love about Rocky is that we have our favourite coffee shops in town and everyone knows you on a first-name basis. It’s not jam-packed, it’s just very relaxed,” he says. “It’s actually been quite fascinating to watch the diversity really broadening.”
How much has the Beef Capital changed? Down in Archer Street, at The Green Eat wholefood cafe, you can order vegetarian ricotta pancakes and vegan jackfruit nachos if you so desire. Enough said. – Matthew Condon
BROOME, WA
Population 14,000 (17,000 LGA)
Median house price $452,000 (LGA)
Average income $73,000 (LGA)
Years to pay off house 22
Yoga teacher Lea Happes was keen to find “the real Australia” when she drove north from Perth three years ago and arrived in Broome. “It was the perfect spot for me,” says Happes, 29, who instantly felt part of the community. Perhaps she arrived in the wet season, when only locals were around; in the tourist dry season Broome’s numbers can swell to a less cosy 50,000.
Every day seems blissfully warm for Happes, who left Germany in 2011 and is a permanent resident in her new-found Kimberley paradise. “I started out in Perth and you spend money easily there. Here you take a bicycle and everywhere is close.” Well, not quite – Broome is 2240km away from Perth, making it one of Australia’s remotest towns.
Broome appeals to Happes for all the things it doesn’t have and those it has in abundance. No industrial sprawl, no trains, no traffic lights, but plenty of pristine beaches along an intermittently mangrove-fringed coastline. Her current favourite is Town Beach, a five-minute drive from her small apartment; there she spends weekends teaching yoga and meditation on the fine golden sands. Cable Beach is her second favourite, a 22km stretch where resort-dwellers greet the Indian Ocean sunrise over tea and toast or stock up the Esky to watch spectacular sunsets.
Broome’s economy has idled for years, a frustration some local business types blame on hippie blow-ins and greenie newcomers. Their campaign wrecked plans in 2013 for a huge gas processing plant 50km up the road at James Price Point. Others say daily prayers of thanks to the protesters and local Aboriginal groups who stopped Woodside’s plant materialising on an unblemished Kimberley coast, leaving intact dinosaur footprints in the rocks and unpolluted marine life in bluer-than-blue oceans. Broome’s strong Yawuru culture, reflected in the homegrown Aboriginal musical hit Bran Nue Dae and a rich local music scene, is also a boon.
Economic indicators are easing upward and new housing suburbs are planned for the red pindan dirt blocks north of the town. Nearly 5000 houses are planned for 13,000 people, doubling the population. But no need to panic for those fearing a city onslaught – it will all happen in Broome time, over the next 20 years. Meanwhile, Broome Shire is busy embellishing the outdoor setting that so suits young families, with millions of dollars earmarked for public works including rock seawalls, coastal footpaths, scooter tracks, artworks and terraced seating. Even the Pioneer Cemetery, a picturesque resting place for generations of Broome’s pearling families, is getting a facelift.
Happes routinely heads to the town’s Shady Lane for coffee; she could cruise to a pearl farm, watch crocs being fed, or pack up the four-wheel drive and explore one of Australia’s last great wilderness areas. But that might sound too energetic for a chilled-out local living on Broome time. – Victoria Laurie
ALICE SPRINGS, NT
Population 26,400
Median house price $461,000
Average income $68,500
Years to pay off house 24
If you were thinking the heart of the continent is too remote for those with urbane tastes, you’ll be surprised to learn the hipsters are already there. Zack Cleaver, 30, had just such an experience when he moved to Alice Springs in February. “People were like, ‘Oh, another person from Melbourne’,” he recalls. “I guess I was surprised by how much, even in Alice Springs, there’s an element of gentrification.”
First encountered by settlers when Scottish explorer John McDouall Stuart journeyed from Adelaide to the Top End in the 1860s, Mparntwe, as locals call it, has been home to the Arrernte people for thousands of years. Their Dreaming stories reach into the adjacent MacDonnell Ranges and as far afield as Port Augusta in South Australia. Within a decade of Stuart’s expedition the Overland Telegraph retraced his route. There was little to see at Alice Springs besides a waterhole and a telegraph station until prospectors discovered gold nearby and the population boomed from the early 1900s onwards.
Alice Springs today retains its patina of frontier grime: it’s a place where reconciliation is less a buzzword than a practical necessity. Cleaver moved there partly to escape Melbourne’s crowds and partly to work as a financial counsellor with Aboriginal people mainly in SA’s APY Lands. “I’ve always wanted to work with Aboriginal Australians to learn more about their culture,” he says. “A job came up and it seemed like a good opportunity. I had never been to the Northern Territory before.” He has found the town to be very friendly. “I got involved with a cycling club; I’ve been doing a fair bit of mountain biking. I didn’t know just how beautiful the landscape would be.”
The Red Centre’s cultural richness is one of its great draws: besides Aboriginal art and traditional practices, Alice Springs has a strong maker movement. You can even find a craftsman to fashion you a pair of leather shoes. Cleaver is on an 18-month contract and it’s early days. But he’s warming to remote life and he reckons others will, too. – Amos Aikman
CLARE, SA
Population 3200 (Clare & Gilbert Valleys LGA 9000)
Median house price $265,000 (LGA)
Average income $58,000 (LGA)
Years to pay off a house 16
For wine writer Nick Ryan, the pleasures of living in South Australia’s Clare Valley can be simply explained. “Where else in Australia can you go to your local burger joint and get a seriously good cheeseburger for $16 and a bottle of Wendouree shiraz for $150?”
The colony of South Australia was just three years old when the first European settlers arrived in the Clare Valley in 1839. Many came from Germany and Poland, bringing with them the winemaking traditions that have made Clare the special place it is today. But a bit like the cult Wendouree winery – which has no website, no cellar door, and whose secret coterie of customers must order their wine by writing formal letters – Clare remains something of a national secret, enjoying none of the fame of the Barossa or Coonawarra.
The Clare Valley is a network of townships about 100km north of Adelaide. Clare is the biggest, with a population of just over 3000, the remainder tiny townships such as Auburn, Sevenhill and Mintaro, home to the majestic Martindale Hall country estate, which served as the boarding house in Peter Weir’s Picnic at Hanging Rock. The region is most famous for its riesling and can be best enjoyed by cycling the Riesling Trail, a breathtaking 25km bike track that weaves through the vineyards of wineries such as Jim Barry, Grosset, Knappstein, Pikes and Skillogalee.
Ryan, his wife Belinda and their three children live in a farmhouse on a sprawling 8ha in the east of the valley, a total reversal of pace from the 17 years he spent working as a journalist in Sydney, where he lived in Bellevue Hill. “I had to go to the airport here the other day and it took me an hour and 40 minutes,” he says. “In Sydney you can get stuck on New South Head Road and it can take you that long to get to William Street.”
Aside from the obvious attraction of living in such a famous wine region where he is mates with many industry figures, Ryan cites the easy lifestyle, the proximity to Adelaide and the strong sense of community as Clare’s biggest drawcards. He is all rigged up with reliable broadband and he and Belinda are thrilled with their eldest daughter’s primary school, and can’t imagine ever living in a big city again. “I used to rent an office space in Adelaide from time to time but I don’t even bother with that anymore,” he says.
“So many people are realising now that you don’t need to be in a certain place to get things done. There are different ways of living and working. Spending half your life in a car and being stuck in an office doesn’t have to be it.” – David Penberthy
MUDGEE, NSW
Population 12,000 (Midwestern Region LGA 25,000)
Median house price $380,200 (LGA)
Average income $61,700 (LGA)
Years to pay off house 22
The village of Mudgee was gazetted in 1838 and the town retains its fine colonial buildings. The town hall, churches, post office and grand old pubs give it a solid, old-world feel. The city centre is a place to linger on a Saturday morning and in recent years there’s been an influx of young people working in its bustling food and wine industry.
It was this vibrancy and the friendliness of Mudgee that enticed lawyer Russell Skinner, 37, and his wife Danielle, 38, an early childhood teacher, to pull up stumps from Maroubra in Sydney’s east and cross The Great Divide with their young son (and another on the way). Maroubra is in Randwick Council, where the average house is $2,148,061. The average wage in Randwick is much higher than in Mudgee, but it takes 85 years to pay off a house there on the average wage compared to 22 years in Mudgee.
Two years ago the Skinners bought a 110ha farm out of Mudgee, which they visited on weekends. They loved it so much they decided to move. Russell got a job with a local solicitor’s firm and started work in January. “The hospitality and friendliness has been overwhelming,” he says. He has signed on to coach the rugby team, the Mudgee Wombats, and Danielle is loving the tranquillity of farm life with their baby son Toby and four-year-old, Joseph.
“I’m really enjoying the work,” Russell says. In Sydney he worked with a mid-tier law firm on “large corporate transactions”. “Now it is a lot more face-to-face, dealing with individuals and actually helping people with outcomes. It is much more satisfying.” He says he’s doing the same amount of work but it’s more relaxed. There’s competition, but of a different kind. “People will turn up for morning tea with these amazing cakes they’ve made. One day it might be an incredible chocolate slice, and then someone will rock up with a banoffee pie … we had a client come in one day with freshly baked scones.”
Sports broadcaster Ken Sutcliffe grew up in Mudgee and, when he left to pursue a career in media, he swore he’d never go back. “Times change,” Sutcliffe says. “And this town has changed for the better.” He moved back to retire and has become the town’s chief spruiker. “There is a brand new hospital. The sporting facilities are outstanding. Did you know there are more coffee shops in Mudgee, per capita, than anywhere in Australia?”
Sutcliffe lives on the edge of town and walks in each morning to have coffee and gossip with old mates. “I walk past paddocks with the scent of freshly cut lucerne in my nostrils,” he says, “and I think to myself, ‘That beats Chanel No 5 anytime’.” – Greg Bearup
BALLAN, VIC
Population 3000 (Moorabool LGA 35,000)
Median house price $473,000 (LGA)
Average income $62,400 (LGA)
Years to pay off house 27
The drive from Melbourne to Victoria’s top tree-change destination has an inauspicious start. Heading west along the sandy flats of the M8, you soon pass a sign saying “prisons” (plural!) But as the speed limit hits 110km/h and the road starts to undulate, the mood lifts. The tension eases as you slide off the freeway and cruise up the rolling Old Melbourne Road into Ballan. It’s an hour from the CBD.
Home to about 3000 people in the middle of Moorabool Shire, Ballan might enjoy a nascent reputation as a haven for fleeing city slickers but the town dates back to the late 1830s and took off during the 1850s gold rush as a staging post between Melbourne and Ballarat. Its main thoroughfare, Inglis Street, part of the Old Melbourne Road, has a hotel and post office that date from its gold mining days.
But it isn’t history that’s attracting new residents to Ballan. A wander past the real estate agencies in Inglis Street begins to tell the story. Lots of places with a 3 or 4 in front of the sale price, mansions still in six figures. Combine that with a railway station two blocks from the main street and trains that take just over an hour to carry commuters to Melbourne CBD, delightful spots along the Werribee River and proximity to nearby national parks and reserves, and you start to get the picture.
Bonnie Griffiths and her husband Spencer, both 28, bought The Tin Plate Cafe in the main street about three years ago. Both originally from nearby Melton, they developed a taste for small-town life during a few years working in hospitality in the snowfields, and the chance to buy the cafe was too good to refuse. They’ve bought their own home: “Three bedrooms, quarter of an acre, brick house, big back yard – we paid $420,000,” Bonnie says.
There are schmicker towns around Melbourne’s perimeter, places like Daylesford, Gisborne or Castlemaine. Ballan is still in the early stages of tree-changification, still a little sleepy, a little country. And all the more charming for it. – Stephen Lunn