Some young people are returning to their roots

OFTEN young people cannot wait to leave their towns for life in the big city, but there are some who return for the sense of community.

At home in the country: Graphic designer Nerida Hippisley has cast aside the bright lights of Melbourne to establish her business and settle in her hometown of Tatura, in Victoria’s North East. Picture: Zoe Phillips.

”I REMEMBER when I was leaving Tatura to go to Melbourne for uni, I couldn’t wait to get out of town. I imagined myself living in the city and pursuing my career — I didn’t have any plans to come back.”

Nerida Hippisley, now 29, left Tatura, a town of about 3500 people in northern Victoria, after high school, eager to explore life in the big smoke.

And she loved it — the hive of activity, the plethora of restaurants and bars, not to mention the job opportunities for an aspiring graphic designer.

Nerida isn’t the only one to relish the expanding world that comes with moving from a small country town to a city — far from it, in fact.

Hers is a familiar story and one that is the subject of a frequent lament about young people leaving regional and rural areas in droves.

But here is the difference: She came back.

“I think most of us, when we left high school, couldn’t wait to leave,” Nerida says.

“At that point, I thought you had to be in the city to have a proper career — especially in design.

“But, after living in Melbourne for a couple of years, I realised that I was being pulled back to the country — I had this nagging feeling that I wanted to go home.”

So, she did.

As did Isabelle Miller, a 23-year-old from Corryong in Victoria’s High Country.

She and her partner, Luke, saw a cafe for sale on a trip home to visit her family.

They were in their final year of a post-graduate education degree in Melbourne but decided, on the spot, to buy it.

“I said to him, ‘how about it? I’m keen if you’re keen’, then we slept on it and a week later we were still keen, so we did,” Isabelle says.

“I think I’ve always wanted to come back to the country, it’s ingrained in who I am.

“And Luke’s a country boy from Glengarry, near Traralgon, so he understands, he has this jovial boyish attitude that fits in well in the country.”

Local lives: Isabelle Miller and her partner, Luke Heiser, moved back to the country to open the Black Sheep Cafe in Corryong. Picture: Zoe Phillips

While Isabelle says she would have made the same decision about moving back to the country wherever the opportunity had come up, she is happy they opened Black Sheep Cafe in her home town.

“I have quite a romantic attachment to the country, and to Corryong, that the city didn’t drum out of me,” she says.

“I always found the country landscape very beautiful — from our house we look out on to Mt Mittamatite and it’s the most lovely thing to wake up to.”

But it was a particular moment, walking down a Melbourne street, that sealed the deal.

“I just had this thought that if I fainted or died in the street, people would only care for a very short period of time and then it would be a dinner party story,” she says. “In the country there’s a real sense of community — it’s more old-fashioned, just people looking after people — it feels safe.”

Nerida experienced a similar feeling after her return home.

“I walk down the street and I say hello to people I’ve known my whole life,” she says.

“And I’m working with people I’ve known my whole life — I work with people who’ve known my parents nearly their whole life.

“It’s that sense of community and having strong ties to people that I find difficult to establish in the city.”

That is not to say it has been an easy transition. When Nerida upped stumps in Melbourne as a university graduate, she faced months of unemployment.

“It took me about six months to crack a job. I was really starting to question whether it was the right move because there’s not that many design job opportunities in the region and at the time there were just no job vacancies,” she says.

“I lucked on to a casual job and that gradually turned into a part-time position.

“I juggled that with some freelance work for a while and then took the plunge and made my business my sole focus.”

Today, she has settled into the rhythm of the country, running her Flying Pig Designs business from an office in her newly bought home.

“I was determined to make it work because it’s where I wanted to be — and I saw a need for my skills in the area,” she says.

“A lot of my uni friends from the country are starting to move back now that they’re getting married and having families, and it’s probably the ones with particular skill sets in areas like medicine who haven’t, and that’s because of their career plans.

“For some industries that may be the case, but it’s the work opportunities that have popped up that have also helped keep me here.”

Isabelle cites social stigma as another reason keeping young people away.

“A friend of mine really wants to come back but he feels it would be social suicide, that he’d lose touch with the rest of the world,” she says.

“I think that’s a common fear, but the social side doesn’t really bother us that much.

“It did a bit at the start, I guess, but we have our routines and our hobbies, and now there’s not enough hours and energy in the day.”

And what about the question both women are all too familiar with: Don’t you miss the city?

“Don’t get me wrong, I love going back to Melbourne to visit and sometimes I miss the city lifestyle, but I don’t find my life lacking because I’ve moved back to the country,” Nerida says.

“If anything, I think it’s richer.”

Isabelle agrees.

“I do miss things, but we were just a bit exhausted of Melbourne,” she says.

“Returning home, I felt like there was this massive, relaxing sigh out, like it was all meant to happen.

“It’s funny, you’re always told how beautiful home is, but you don’t always realise it.

“It often takes people to go away and then come back to appreciate home and reconnect.”