TREE CHANGE

With city living’s ceaseless pace, cost and disconnect from nature, a growing wave of young people are opting for a small-town lifestyle. By Remy Rippon.

With city living’s ceaseless pace, cost and disconnect from nature, a growing wave of young people are opting for a small-town lifestyle.

Tanunda is a pretty-as-a-picture township of 4,600 people about 50 minutes from Adelaide in the Barossa Valley. There’s a chicken shop, a coffee shop, a Chinese restaurant, a school and a couple of bakeries. It’s where Sydneysider Frankie Pelquest-Hunt moved for her then-boyfriend, now-husband’s career as a winemaker, after a stint in London. But Tanunda is nothing like London, in fact, they couldn’t be more different.

But that’s precisely why Pelquest-Hunt, a kindergarten teacher, loves Tanunda. Admittedly, the first year was not all Under The Tuscan Sun vibes. In an effort to build a network in the tight-knit community, she signed up to a gym, joined a netball team, became fluent in AFL and contemplated joining the local lawn bowls competition. “For the first year, one of the hardest things was making friends,” says the 30-year-old, who has now lived in the South Australian township for six years. “Now I can’t leave the house without seeing someone I know, which is so lovely, because you just feel like you belong in this community and someone will always come and say hi.”

Whether for the promise of work, a more comfortable lifestyle, a change of pace, affordable property prices, or a connectedness to nature, many citysiders are relocating regionally. Friends I thought would crumble without Uber on tap – the ones who seemed to live for the big smoke’s never-ending stream of restaurant openings, after-work dos and before-work breakfasts – are swapping out their inner-city Domain.com searches for regional digs.

Could it make us happier? Healthier? Less-stressed? Research says yes. The 2015 annual Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia Survey found that towns smaller than 1,000 people and non-urban areas increased life satisfaction, which was closely followed by urban areas outside major cities. If you’ve ever wondered why most health retreats are situated in the middle of nowhere, there’s good reason: the link between open space, nature and happiness is well documented.

Nature-deficit disorder, a term coined by author Richard Louv, describes the gradual psychological and physical pitfalls of being disconnected from nature. Of course, residing in major cities doesn’t imply we’re living in concrete boxes with little exposure to trees. What it does suggest is that our desire to experience the great outdoors and the notion that nature makes us happy are evergreen.

Cam Grant and his twin brother Chris were part of a growing breed of over-worked professionals who sought out a simpler life through once-a-year holidays to far-flung locations like Sumatra and Nepal to offset the nine-to-five burnout and reconnect with the environment. “We lived in the city, but longed for the outdoors,” says Cam, who worked in the strategy department at Commonwealth Bank. “We started to realise that you can’t always do that. These days if you’re working over 300 days a year for this one trip, you come back to a full inbox and everyone’s just back where they started,” he says. This was the catalyst for creating their business, Unyoked – meaning to release, disconnect or separate – which consists of small, well-appointed cabins nestled into natural surrounds within a two-hour radius from the city. “In less than two podcasts’ time you’ll be in the middle of the wilderness, sitting there in your own cabin with no-one around, able to disconnect and connect with things that are more meaningful,” says Cam, who currently has six cabins surrounding Melbourne and Sydney.

The cabins are intentionally minimal – bed, kettle, bathroom, stovetop – but what they lack in mod-cons and Wi-Fi (there’s a signal should you need it) they make up in good-for-soul activities. Think open fires at dusk, bush walks, morning fry-ups and evening cook-offs. “It’s in response to where we are in society and culture at the moment. You’re more and more connected digitally, but that’s at the expense of more meaningful connections. We’re just seeing more of the same stuff … people are craving to connect with something more simple but also meaningful,” says Cam.

Surprisingly, it’s Gen Y and Millennials, who having grown up glued to their devices, are tapping out of the fast lane of city living (it’s not just baby boomers choosing to sell up and ship out). In fact, the latest research shows that nearly 80 per cent of people leaving cities for regional areas are under 50. But it’s perhaps not in spite of technology but because of it: with increased interconnectedness, globalroaming offices and the steady drift away from nine-to-five office hours, the need to be within commuter distance of a company HQ is dwindling.

But in a society that becomes increasingly impatient, is it a case, quite literally, of the grass is always greener? When the pillars of city living – 80-hour working weeks, public transport meltdowns, and eye-wateringly expensive property prices – become tired, it’s comforting to romanticise an escape to the country; imagining that with a change of pace, a vegie patch and a good dose of sunshine our worries too will melt away. If anything, it may be the thought of open space and a shorter work week that provides the fuel to keep up the pace – according to an NBN survey, Australians were twice as likely to fantasise a regional move than actually relocate.

Kimberly Amos turned visions into reality when she moved with her husband and three sons from Sydney’s northern beaches to Byron Bay 14 years ago. Like Pelquest-Hunt, building a network was among the hardest challenges. “It was difficult at first finding a tribe to connect with, and being away from close friends with a newborn when that support is so crucial, it took me a while to find my feet and connect,” says Amos, who founded popular beach lodge the Atlantic. “Remember that this was in 2005, when half of Melbourne and Sydney hadn’t moved to the Bay,” she adds. While the family has since relocated to the nearby town of Brunswick Heads (a sleepier town to its touristic neighbour), a move from the city made life “that little bit simpler”, and unexpectedly fuelled the family creatively. “I think the most surprising characteristic of Byron Bay was the intense lure of creativity. It has managed to retain this in the 14 years we have lived here and still surprises me with its strong energy of innovation,” enthuses Amos.

It’s the little things that seem to make the biggest impact. I phone Pelquest-Hunt after work on a Thursday evening. In the space of our 20-minute phone call she’s collected and paid for groceries and driven the short journey home. When we bid farewell, she’s parked in the driveway of her three-bedroom home with a good verandah and by city standards, a whopping great backyard. “The other thing I really love about living here, which cannot be replicated in the city, is the sense of community. Tomorrow night we have the Tanunda Christmas parade, which is a parade of Christmas floats that goes down the main street and everyone’s there. We’ll know everyone and it’s so amazing. There’s a real sense of belonging.”

“It’s in response to where we are in society … people are craving to connect with something more simple but also meaningful”