You've been dreaming about land for years.
Not a Farm Tour.
One day on over 100 acres, an hour east of Melbourne, with the man who couldn't afford them but bought them anyway. Every decision, every invoice, every mistake, at the exact spot where it happened.
Tourists,
this is your exit.
There are plenty of farms that will let you pat a chicken, look at the bees and take some honey home. Lovely places. This isn't one of them.
This is for people deciding whether to change their life. Half an acre out the back, a block in the hills, a share of something bigger. The question is the same either way: can I actually do this, and what will it cost me.
I made that change. Fat, behind a desk, no idea. Now I lift and carry things all day and I'd sooner die than go back. Since then I've helped people start farms up and down the east coast and watched them spend real money on the same mistakes I made. The cheapest way to learn what I know is to walk it with me.
Jeremy Clarkson shows you the fun and the chaos. It's accurate, and we all owe him for it. This is the other ninety percent. The boring but useful knowledge you can actually take home and use yourself.
We start at the gate.
We stop at everything.
A farm is a thousand small decisions welded together, and half of them are wrong. You'll stand at each one while I tell you what I was thinking, what it cost, and what happened next.
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The gate
Why an N-stay gate, why it swings that way, why the posts are where they are, and what the first attempt taught me about concrete.
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The driveway
Gravel, on purpose. What a six-tonne excavator and a loaded truck do to asphalt, and what gravel costs you every single winter instead.
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The orchard
Why I built a five-wire trellis on a ten-degree slope, what thrived, what died, and the one thing I would never do again. We'll pick whatever's ripe.
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The shed that isn't
Because there's a shed going in and the paperwork moves slower than the weather. What "existing buildings" and "council" mean when you're the one signing the contract.
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The trailers, oh the trailers
Why you need more trailers than you think you do, and how they save the day.
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The machines I regret
Bought it, used it never. Still in the shed. My mistake, your saving.
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The paddocks and the dams
Slope, aspect, water, soil. What the land told me before I bought it, what it didn't, and how to read a block through a farmer's eyes instead of a real estate photo.
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The fence
I built them. They broke. I repaired them. They don't match anymore. This is what a working farm actually looks like up close, and why the tidy ones worry me.
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The forest
Bush as far as you can see. What standing timber is worth to a working farm that heats and builds with it, and what it costs in sweat and diesel to get it out.
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The 11pm storm
Lightning, rain, cattle heading for the road. The night that tells you, honestly, whether this life is for you.
You get the invoices.
Every stop has a number attached: what it cost, what it should have cost, and what I'd pay now knowing what I know. You get all of them, out loud, standing next to the thing I bought.
- Front gate, posts, hinges, concrete$
- Gravel driveway, per metre, plus the top-up every winter$
- Seven-row trellis, posts, wire, strainers, labour$
- Fencing, per metre, done properly vs done twice$
- Trailers, and the fire trailer fit-out$
- The machines I used twice, or never$
- Three years of council$
The numbers are for the day. They're not going on the internet.
The day.
Rain or shine. Especially rain.
9am to 4pm
An hour of that is lunch. The rest you're on your feet. We'll walk more than 70 acres. Slowly, but it's still walking, and a lot of it is uphill.
Boots
Not sneakers. I wear white sneakers everywhere and can't keep them clean for the length of the driveway. Don't be me.
Lunch is from the farm
You'll eat what we raise here, and go home with farm produce. Probably the best eggs you'll ever taste.
Ten people
Small enough that every stop is a conversation. If more want to come, I run more days.
More than $400
A head. That's deliberate: priced like a day with a consultant, not a day at a petting zoo, because that's what this is.
Who's walking you.
I'm Matt. I used to run medical clinics, law firms and food manufacturers. Now I run excavators, a bandsaw mill, chainsaws and tractors, and I weld the hinges that break.
I couldn't afford land of my own, so a few years ago I joined with other families and bought land anyway. I've been the one out here building it ever since: fences, orchard, butchery, roads, a shed that's been three years at council. All of it with my hands, most of it twice.
I've since walked other people through the same decision, from Victoria to Queensland, and I've run days like this before on other farms. This is the first one on my farm. I make the videos at Discernable; you probably got here from one of them.
I'm not selling you a lifestyle. I'm showing you one, close enough to smell it, so you can decide for yourself.
How this works.
There's a vetting process. That's deliberate too. I'd rather walk with four people who mean it than thirty who are bored.
Leave your first name and email below.
I write back and ask you a couple of questions about where you're at and what you're trying to work out.
If it fits, you get an invite.
Put your name down.
This puts you on the list for an invite. It doesn't book anything, and it doesn't commit you to anything.