Chris Bath going full-throttle
Several years ago, Chris Bath gambled her whole career on finding greater happiness. The journey that followed has led her to a life more rewarding than she could ever have imagined.
After gambling her career on finding greater happiness, the rewards have exceeded what she could ever have imagined was possible
TThis is a good news story – to understand why, let’s go back four years. Chris Bath was standing on the precipice of a life that no longer worked for her. Here she was, at the pinnacle of a glittering career as one of The Seven Network’s top stars, but she was desperately unhappy. “I would literally get to the door at work and feel my blood pressure go up,” she reveals. “I could feel tightness, I could feel breathlessness. And it was just stress. I’ve never known stress like that.” So, defying the advice of her friends, Chris decided to walk away, turning her back on the success she’d worked so hard for – the financial security, the prestige, everything. “I think that’s one of the bravest decisions I’ve ever made in my life,” she admits. “Having worked at something for nearly 30 years to get to the point I was at, when I walked away in 2015. It was a really, really big decision. “I had people around me going, ‘We have to stop you doing this!’ And I wanted to say to them,
‘I know financially this is probably a bad decision. I’m also aware that career-wise you think this is a bad decision. But I think this is a good decision and I’m calling time.’ And I’ve never regretted it.”
Someone once said that whenever you’re grappling with a life-changing decision, try to imagine you have a bungee cord on your feet, and tell yourself that you’ll always bounce back. Nonetheless, it can be scary. It can be lonely.
And it can take time.
“It took me a while to find out what was going to be the right thing for me to do next,” Chris says. “I had this internal dialogue with myself going, ‘Okay, what are you going to do? You need to make the best decision so you can suck the marrow out of life.”
And so Chris chose an unexpected path. She said yes to hosting ABC Radio Sydney’s Evenings program, including the famous Evenings’ quiz.
“This is a whole, brand-new world for me, where I’m making rookie errors and stuffing things up, but learning from the mistakes. And it’s a whole new place that I can channel creative energy into. There’s much more of an avenue on radio to be yourself. I think for the first time in my professional career, the sort of person I am [on air] is a bit closer to the person l really am.
The last time that happened probably was on Dancing with the Stars, but that was 14 years ago.”
And then a funny thing happened: TV news came knocking. So since the start of this year, Chris has been hosting 10 News First, the weekend news on Network 10, while presenting on ABC Radio Mondays to Thursdays. That’s an intense six-day week.
“But I’m really enjoying the best of both worlds,” she says. “I’m lucky that both employers are allowing me to do it. And I’m really enjoying being at Ten. The culture is amazing. I don’t know what they’ve done to achieve it, but it’s just a lovely place to walk into every day.”
And so, at 52, a time when some people are scaling back and doing less, Chris Bath is going full-throttle, with no normal two-day weekend break. Seriously, how does she manage it?
“It’s pretty manic, but I think it’s manageable when you really enjoy what you’re doing. And I make the most of my downtime… well, my family will dispute it’s downtime,” Chris says, her brown eyes twinkling, as she talks about the genuine pleasure she gets from her ‘downtime’ – tending her vegie garden, planting trees and establishing a bee colony on the farm she and her husband, sports journalist Jim Wilson, bought in the Hunter Valley, north of Sydney, two years ago. They’ve dubbed it ‘Bird Nerds R Us Farm’.
“The farm is the best thing I’ve ever done, apart from birdwatching, which I learnt from my son, [Darcy, 18]. They’re the two biggest things that have made such a difference to my life.”
Those who listen to Chris’ radio show know she is passionate about birdwatching through her regular segment, Bathie’s Bird Club.
“Darc has been fixated on birds since he could speak,” she says. “I’ve watched this kid infect everyone around him with his enthusiasm for birds.”
Chris has even got her friend and farm neighbour Johanna Griggs, host of Better Homes and Gardens, hooked on birdwatching too.
“Joh Griggs now has her own pair of binoculars,” Chris says. “Recently, we watched a couple of wedge-tailed eagles devour a kangaroo carcass.”
Chris says part of the reason she and Jim bought ‘Bird Nerds R Us Farm’ is for Darcy. “It’s a legacy for him to show his children the birds that come to our place. That’s my dream.”
To celebrate Darcy finishing his HSC last year, Chris took him on a birdwatching exploration to the Amazon. “The great thing that I really enjoyed was to be able to go away on a holiday, just him and me,” she says. “And we’re going to do it again in the next 12 months and go birdwatching in Ecuador.”
Meanwhile, she loves the solace she gets from her time on her farm. Chris drives up there after finishing her radio show on Thursday evening, arriving around midnight. “Then I wake up to lyrebirds, bowerbirds and magpies carolling, and butcherbirds singing. I get up and go into the garden and plant trees and go birdwatching and just relish the fact that I’m in the middle of nowhere and you can’t see another human being. Because I spend the whole week yapping, Friday is this day of silence where there’s just me and the birds and the trees. It’s fantastic.
“I don’t know that I’m particularly good with farming skills, but at the moment we’re not growing anything apart from my vegetables and keeping bees. I have a vision of creating
You need to make the best decision so you can suck the marrow out of life.
I’ve realised, in a good way, that I’m not 20 anymore, when I watch myself making really mature decisions.
bird corridors and turning it into a bit of a bird paradise, so that means supplying food they want to eat, which is why I’ve been planting trees.”
Come lunchtime each Saturday, it’s time for Chris to emerge from her pastoral idyll and return to her media life. She heads to the Network 10 studios to prepare for the nightly news.
”There’s the perception that television is this glamorous thing,” she laughs. “But I get into makeup at Channel 10 looking totally feral. My hair’s curly because it hasn’t been blow-dried, I don’t have makeup on, and I’ve usually got dirt all over my fingers. Then I get completely transformed.”
Being on telly again, Chris admits, has taken a bit of an adjustment. “I’m actually more comfortable with who I am now and my body. I just think, ‘This is me; I can’t do anything about time or gravity.’ I don’t mind looking old – that doesn’t bother me – but television is a visual medium and so I think, ‘I can’t look too bad.’ That’s not an indictment on television, but it is quite a cruel medium for women. Once you get post-50, you get this thing called Resting B*tch-Face: a friend pointed out that my ‘concentrating’ face looks crankier as
I get older. I don’t know what to do about that.”
But Chris is the kind of person who prefers to dwell on the positive aspects of being at midlife, and quickly points out that age has its advantages. “There’ve been a couple of times I’ve realised, in a good way, that I’m not 20 anymore – when I have watched myself make a really mature decision.
If I get really stressed, I’ll just take myself away from everything, and have a good think. I need time to process things. I think age and maturity give you the ability to go, ‘This will pass – just let it go.’ Not everyone has to learn that life lesson, but it was something I had to learn, which I think has been a good thing about being post-50.”
Good health remains a key part of her lifestyle and so Chris looks fantastically fit and trim. Chris says she likes to monitor what she puts in her mouth. “I try to eat enough vegetables and fruit and get enough fibre in my diet because I feel better and I function better. So food is divided into two categories – worth getting fat for, not worth getting fat for. Or, worth feeling bad for and not worth feeling bad for.”
Chris says she finds “exercise, in a weird sort of way, relaxes me, and I’m better able to deal with stress if I exercise. In terms of overall wellbeing, I feel better. For me, it’s Pilates three times a week. I have this amazing Irish teacher I call the IRA, who’s really tough. The rest of my exercise I get at the farm. I planted more than 200 trees in really shallow, rocky soil with a crowbar – that’s exercise, I’ve got to tell you! Just doing things on the farm keeps me quite physical. And I do a lot of walking for birdwatching, which is marvellous incidental exercise.”
So if Chris is now in her second act, what’s her third? “Going fully feral at the farm is very appealing,” she says. “I’m open to whatever happens next. It has been a great challenge at
50 to go, ‘Let’s try something new!’ It’s been a bit scary, but it’s been great.”