The Plan

A storm was brewing on the horizon, foreboding clouds filled the sky and the wind was loud and so ferocious I left my camera behind for fear of getting sand in the lens. The Sea, however, was a picture of calm and serenity, the result of an offshore wind. There was not a single white cap out there. Barely a ripple. It was such an odd scene and one I felt compelled to capture, albeit on my phone. 

Things around here are a bit the same. We're chugging along fairly smoothly on the surface, but there is a flurry of activity going on in the background. It's an odd feeling and I needed to document it so I can look back and remember this moment - the one where a dream was finally put into a realistic plan and the plan was given to the "powers at be" to decide whether or not to give the dream some wings.

We have been thinking about what to do with our property ever since we bought it in 2006. The idea was always to be able to earn a living from the farm, to build something from nothing that we could call our own. Something that would be an asset to the local area as well as providing us with a lifestyle and work that we are passionate about. 

Many ideas have come and gone over the last 7 years. Discussions have stalled as each new baby joins the family, just as they should, and discussions ended completely when we left the farm and lived in Sydney for 18 months. However, at some point you have to bite the bullet and in the past 16 months since we've been back there has been some very serious thought put into it. We toyed around with romantic notions of Cottages and B&B's nestled among Vineyards. There were also months that went into researching the ins and outs of various crops - Lavender, Saffron and at the risk of sounding like a drug lord, Poppies. Tasmania is one of the few places in the world where it is legal to grow Opium Poppies for the pharmaceutical industry. At the end of the day, it had to be something that was so exciting to us that the scary amount of hard work required to make it happen was worth it. 

So after 7 years, we finally have plans for a Tourism Development. We live in a Wine Region along one of the major tourist routes so we kept coming back to a tourism venture. It makes perfect sense. There have been meetings with Local Council, engineers have been on site, horticulturists and landscape architects have been consulted and reports have been done by traffic surveyors. Most importantly, advice from smart people in the tourism industry has been sought. Plans have been drawn up by the Architect and they are sitting here in my hot little hand. The Development Application will be finalised and submitted in 3 weeks and then I can tell you specifically what it is. It is very exciting.

Until then, we sit in this odd place of finally having a concrete plan but not knowing whether it will even get to first base. And then if Local Council give us the green light there will still be the big task of raising capital and then the lengthy construction time. The official opening would probably be 2 years from now. That's a long time to be living in an anxious little bubble with all the obstacles and ups and downs that will come along the way. It may not even get off the ground at all. There may be huge disappointment. So, for the next few months I will just continue chugging along as best I can, going about my day and looking after the kids while the fate of the dream rests with others.

* photos taken at Apollo Bay, Great Ocean Road, Victoria