About two months after that fateful conversation a decade ago, Anna and Andy started looking for properties that would suit a trufferie. They were determined from the beginning that their farm would not use chemicals or pesticides and they found a property for sale in Canyonleigh that had been part of a biodynamic cattle farm. 

“We learned that the previous owner, who was still living on one of the other parts of the old cattle station, had looked into whether a trufferie would be suitable for her land,” Andy says. “She had even had the soil tested. It’s as if the stars had aligned.”

And so they bought the 117 acre property, which has about 30 acres of arable land and lies at the end of a narrow road lined with horse and cattle properties at the north-western tip of Canyonleigh. It is perched on a ridge above the Wollondilly River with stunning 360 degree views.

Both Anna and Andy were working full time in corporate roles in Sydney when they bought the property and they would drive down each weekend, sleeping in a tent and using an outdoor toilet and shower. 

“After a while we built a small cabin – and we shared it with 400 saplings.”

They had sourced the saplings from a reputable Victorian supplier because they knew it was critical to obtain trees that had been successfully inoculated. They began planting them by hand in 2016 as consultants and contractors told them it would be impossible to manage their trufferie without using chemicals or pesticides – particularly to keep the weeds under control. 

“We always had aspirations to do it organically and we thought it would be a real point of difference,” Andy says. “There have been a number of times when we really questioned whether we could do it. But we stuck to our principles and we’re really glad we did.”

After a couple of years they realised they didn’t want to return to their Sydney offices on Mondays.

“That’s when it dawned on us it was no longer this hobby project but a business we could take seriously. So in 2018 we decided to sell our house in Sydney.”

The next few years were extremely challenging, first because of the drought, Anna would drive down to Canyonleigh and back mid-week, a four hour round trip early in the morning or late at night, to water the trees and hope they survived. They did. And then came the bushfires.

“The fires came so close to our property that we could view them on our north ridge line,” Andy recalls.

Their trufferie now consisted of 600 trees and remarkably they all survived both the drought and then the bushfires of 2019.

In July 2020, four years after they had planted their first trees, Anna received a call from a Victorian truffle consultant who had become a friend. 

“He’d been extremely supportive and he called to ask how we were going and if we’d looked for any truffles yet. I said it was too early and we wouldn’t have anything for another year. He told me to just go out and see what’s there. So, reluctantly, I started looking and when I got to the fourth tree the smell just hit me, straight in the face. I thought: ‘No, that can’t be a truffle.’ And then I started to dig – and there it was, our first truffle. 

“I ran up to the barn with tears streaming down my face and shouted: “Andy, we’ve got [expletive] truffles!”

Andy was on a work call and everyone on it could hear Anna’s joyful screams and see her jumping around in the background. It’s a very COVID story.

This first harvest didn’t produce enough truffles to sell, so they gave them as gifts to (very fortunate) friends.

“You don’t have to be great in the kitchen, an amazing chef, to use truffles,” Andy stresses. “You can just shave them on to simple meals – pasta, eggs, certain meats – and it makes a huge difference. You can put them on a toasted cheese sandwich and it tastes amazing.”

In 2021 they produced about 30 kilograms of truffles and in 2022 they produced slightly more. They sell them to a few local restaurants as well as clients in Sydney and Victoria.

Today the Truffle Barn boasts 520 French Oaks, which host Perigord French black truffles, and 88 Italian Stone Pines, which host white truffles (bianchetto) and will eventually also produce pine nuts.

Anna and Andy harvest their truffles with the help of their two German Shorthaired Pointers, Cyril and Nutmeg. 

“They are not ideal truffle dogs, because they are hunting dogs and get distracted,” Anna says, “but they are robust farm dogs and perform very well. They are trained to locate the truffle and then mark the soil. Some are trained to just sit, while I find it’s easier if they mark with their paws. They get a treat if they get it right.”

Anna and Andy have maintained their commitment to be chemical and pesticide free, using biodegradable weed mats and only adding lime to increase the soil PH. Their broader sustainability goals are achieved by the farm operating entirely on solar power, with battery storage, while all the water used is rainwater captured and stored in water tanks and dams. They have also improved the efficiency of water runoff into their dams.

Anna studied permaculture after she resigned from her corporate role, and this has significantly informed their management of The Truffle Barn.

“It has been brilliant. It’s really changed our life and how we live down here.”

Anna and Andy are still living in a cabin as they build the house they hope will be completed next year. Their new home, which sits beautifully on a hill above the Wollondilly River, reflects their desire to minimise their carbon footprint, both during construction and for the life of the building. No plasterboard or paint has been used. The floor is concrete and the main materials are timber and hemp. 

“Hemp is not commonly used as a building product in Australia, which is a shame because its insulation and fire rated properties are excellent.”

They have a large kitchen garden, which provides vegetables in all seasons, and there is a cellar under the house for storage of any excess produce. This year, they have produced their first commercial crop of garlic.

Anna and Andy love their new life and have no doubt it has been the right decision to leave Sydney and pursue their passion for truffles.

They say it’s been important to become involved in the local community. They participate in several local organisations, including for agribusiness owners, and they have both become voluntary ambulance officers. This is important in Canyonleigh, where ambulance services have a long journey when they are called following a car or motorbike accident, a fall from a horse or even a plane crash at the nearby airfield.

Looking back, Andy says their naivety was a blessing.

“If we knew up front how much hard work was involved and how challenging it would be, we probably wouldn’t have started,” he admits.

Anna adds that all the stonework around the property was built from stones that they picked or dug up by hand from the trufferie plot and then moved with a wheelbarrow. They have calculated there are about 160 tonnes of rock in their Gabion cages. 

“There’s no way you would embark on that process if you knew at the start what you would be doing,” she laughs.

The Truffle Barn produces fresh truffles for three months a year, from June to mid-September, and the rest of the year is spent pruning and maintaining the trufferie. This is vital to the success of the next season. While they have begun to think about diversification in the future, Andy notes they have learned that an agribusiness can become all-consuming.

“One of the reasons we made the tree change was to have more connection to the land and to each other, to enjoy more quality time,” he says. “The trap you can fall into with an agribusiness like this is that you can work seven days a week – more than you did in the corporate world.”

“We know we are producing really good truffles now and that is a really good feeling,” Anna adds. “We are proud of what we have achieved. I think we need to enjoy that for another couple of years before we start to branch out. There is a danger that you don’t pause for long enough and enjoy what you’ve done.”

For the moment then, Anna and Andy are stopping to smell the truffles.

For more information visit thetrufflebarn.com

About two months after that fateful conversation a decade ago, Anna and Andy started looking for properties that would suit a trufferie. They were determined from the beginning that their farm would not use chemicals or pesticides and they found a property for sale in Canyonleigh that had been part of a biodynamic cattle farm. 

“We learned that the previous owner, who was still living on one of the other parts of the old cattle station, had looked into whether a trufferie would be suitable for her land,” Andy says. “She had even had the soil tested. It’s as if the stars had aligned.”

And so they bought the 117 acre property, which has about 30 acres of arable land and lies at the end of a narrow road lined with horse and cattle properties at the north-western tip of Canyonleigh. It is perched on a ridge above the Wollondilly River with stunning 360 degree views.

Both Anna and Andy were working full time in corporate roles in Sydney when they bought the property and they would drive down each weekend, sleeping in a tent and using an outdoor toilet and shower. 

“After a while we built a small cabin – and we shared it with 400 saplings.”

They had sourced the saplings from a reputable Victorian supplier because they knew it was critical to obtain trees that had been successfully inoculated. They began planting them by hand in 2016 as consultants and contractors told them it would be impossible to manage their trufferie without using chemicals or pesticides – particularly to keep the weeds under control. 

“We always had aspirations to do it organically and we thought it would be a real point of difference,” Andy says. “There have been a number of times when we really questioned whether we could do it. But we stuck to our principles and we’re really glad we did.”

After a couple of years they realised they didn’t want to return to their Sydney offices on Mondays.

“That’s when it dawned on us it was no longer this hobby project but a business we could take seriously. So in 2018 we decided to sell our house in Sydney.”

The next few years were extremely challenging, first because of the drought, Anna would drive down to Canyonleigh and back mid-week, a four hour round trip early in the morning or late at night, to water the trees and hope they survived. They did. And then came the bushfires.

“The fires came so close to our property that we could view them on our north ridge line,” Andy recalls.

Their trufferie now consisted of 600 trees and remarkably they all survived both the drought and then the bushfires of 2019.

In July 2020, four years after they had planted their first trees, Anna received a call from a Victorian truffle consultant who had become a friend. 

“He’d been extremely supportive and he called to ask how we were going and if we’d looked for any truffles yet. I said it was too early and we wouldn’t have anything for another year. He told me to just go out and see what’s there. So, reluctantly, I started looking and when I got to the fourth tree the smell just hit me, straight in the face. I thought: ‘No, that can’t be a truffle.’ And then I started to dig – and there it was, our first truffle. 

“I ran up to the barn with tears streaming down my face and shouted: “Andy, we’ve got [expletive] truffles!”

Andy was on a work call and everyone on it could hear Anna’s joyful screams and see her jumping around in the background. It’s a very COVID story.

This first harvest didn’t produce enough truffles to sell, so they gave them as gifts to (very fortunate) friends.

“You don’t have to be great in the kitchen, an amazing chef, to use truffles,” Andy stresses. “You can just shave them on to simple meals – pasta, eggs, certain meats – and it makes a huge difference. You can put them on a toasted cheese sandwich and it tastes amazing.”

In 2021 they produced about 30 kilograms of truffles and in 2022 they produced slightly more. They sell them to a few local restaurants as well as clients in Sydney and Victoria.

Today the Truffle Barn boasts 520 French Oaks, which host Perigord French black truffles, and 88 Italian Stone Pines, which host white truffles (bianchetto) and will eventually also produce pine nuts.

Anna and Andy harvest their truffles with the help of their two German Shorthaired Pointers, Cyril and Nutmeg. 

“They are not ideal truffle dogs, because they are hunting dogs and get distracted,” Anna says, “but they are robust farm dogs and perform very well. They are trained to locate the truffle and then mark the soil. Some are trained to just sit, while I find it’s easier if they mark with their paws. They get a treat if they get it right.”

Anna and Andy have maintained their commitment to be chemical and pesticide free, using biodegradable weed mats and only adding lime to increase the soil PH. Their broader sustainability goals are achieved by the farm operating entirely on solar power, with battery storage, while all the water used is rainwater captured and stored in water tanks and dams. They have also improved the efficiency of water runoff into their dams.

Anna studied permaculture after she resigned from her corporate role, and this has significantly informed their management of The Truffle Barn.

“It has been brilliant. It’s really changed our life and how we live down here.”

Anna and Andy are still living in a cabin as they build the house they hope will be completed next year. Their new home, which sits beautifully on a hill above the Wollondilly River, reflects their desire to minimise their carbon footprint, both during construction and for the life of the building. No plasterboard or paint has been used. The floor is concrete and the main materials are timber and hemp. 

“Hemp is not commonly used as a building product in Australia, which is a shame because its insulation and fire rated properties are excellent.”

They have a large kitchen garden, which provides vegetables in all seasons, and there is a cellar under the house for storage of any excess produce. This year, they have produced their first commercial crop of garlic.

Anna and Andy love their new life and have no doubt it has been the right decision to leave Sydney and pursue their passion for truffles.

They say it’s been important to become involved in the local community. They participate in several local organisations, including for agribusiness owners, and they have both become voluntary ambulance officers. This is important in Canyonleigh, where ambulance services have a long journey when they are called following a car or motorbike accident, a fall from a horse or even a plane crash at the nearby airfield.

It is no surprise when you meet him to learn that Mick grew up in Inverell where his family had been breeding Fine Merino sheep and Poll Hereford cattle for three generations. He studied commerce and accounting at Charles Sturt University and worked for Toyota after he graduated. His wife Karen completed an MBA at Charles Sturt University and then worked in a variety of corporate roles.

They bought their first farm in 2002, near Bargo where Karen’s family were living, and Mick thought he would follow in his family’s footsteps.

“I had a plan to grow meat sheep with a self-replacing flock and then out of the blue Karen said: ‘I don’t want sheep, I want alpacas.’ I said: ‘Let me tell you a story about alpacas. I saw my first alpacas at The Sydney Royal Easter Show in about 1989. There were just two of them in a pen in the goat and pig pavilion. I knew what they were, but I said to my grandfather: ‘Pa, what are these?’ He said: ‘Son, they’re alpacas. Steer clear of them, they will be the feral goat of the 2000s.’

“I told Karen there was no fibre industry, no meat industry and no return on investment and that only iconic, well to do people could afford to have alpacas for their tax scheme. But despite everything I put forward, she said: ‘I don’t care, that’s what I want to do. They are such interesting and beautiful animals.’ And then she told me she’d done all this research and even spoken to Janie Forrest.”

Janie Forrest was an industry leader, having taken over the administration and management of Coolaroo Alpaca Stud in 1995 and then purchasing that business in 1998.

“We’d recently bought our first car and we thought we were so good because we’d saved up and paid for it in cash,” Mick recalls. “And then we bought our first couple of alpacas – and they cost more than the car.”

It was a very steep learning curve for the Williams.

The next few years were extremely challenging, first because of the drought, Anna would drive down to Canyonleigh and back mid-week, a four hour round trip early in the morning or late at night, to water the trees and hope they survived. They did. And then came the bushfires.

“The fires came so close to our property that we could view them on our north ridge line,” Andy recalls.

Their trufferie now consisted of 600 trees and remarkably they all survived both the drought and then the bushfires of 2019.

In July 2020, four years after they had planted their first trees, Anna received a call from a Victorian truffle consultant who had become a friend. 

“He’d been extremely supportive and he called to ask how we were going and if we’d looked for any truffles yet. I said it was too early and we wouldn’t have anything for another year. He told me to just go out and see what’s there. So, reluctantly, I started looking and when I got to the fourth tree the smell just hit me, straight in the face. I thought: ‘No, that can’t be a truffle.’ And then I started to dig – and there it was, our first truffle. 

“I ran up to the barn with tears streaming down my face and shouted: “Andy, we’ve got [expletive] truffles!”

Andy was on a work call and everyone on it could hear Anna’s joyful screams and see her jumping around in the background. It’s a very COVID story.

This first harvest didn’t produce enough truffles to sell, so they gave them as gifts to (very fortunate) friends.

“You don’t have to be great in the kitchen, an amazing chef, to use truffles,” Andy stresses. “You can just shave them on to simple meals – pasta, eggs, certain meats – and it makes a huge difference. You can put them on a toasted cheese sandwich and it tastes amazing.”

In 2021 they produced about 30 kilograms of truffles and in 2022 they produced slightly more. They sell them to a few local restaurants as well as clients in Sydney and Victoria.

Today the Truffle Barn boasts 520 French Oaks, which host Perigord French black truffles, and 88 Italian Stone Pines, which host white truffles (bianchetto) and will eventually also produce pine nuts.

Anna and Andy harvest their truffles with the help of their two German Shorthaired Pointers, Cyril and Nutmeg. 

“They are not ideal truffle dogs, because they are hunting dogs and get distracted,” Anna says, “but they are robust farm dogs and perform very well. They are trained to locate the truffle and then mark the soil. Some are trained to just sit, while I find it’s easier if they mark with their paws. They get a treat if they get it right.”

Anna and Andy have maintained their commitment to be chemical and pesticide free, using biodegradable weed mats and only adding lime to increase the soil PH. Their broader sustainability goals are achieved by the farm operating entirely on solar power, with battery storage, while all the water used is rainwater captured and stored in water tanks and dams. They have also improved the efficiency of water runoff into their dams.

Anna studied permaculture after she resigned from her corporate role, and this has significantly informed their management of The Truffle Barn.

“It has been brilliant. It’s really changed our life and how we live down here.”

Anna and Andy are still living in a cabin as they build the house they hope will be completed next year. Their new home, which sits beautifully on a hill above the Wollondilly River, reflects their desire to minimise their carbon footprint, both during construction and for the life of the building. No plasterboard or paint has been used. The floor is concrete and the main materials are timber and hemp. 

“Hemp is not commonly used as a building product in Australia, which is a shame because its insulation and fire rated properties are excellent.”

They have a large kitchen garden, which provides vegetables in all seasons, and there is a cellar under the house for storage of any excess produce. This year, they have produced their first commercial crop of garlic.

Anna and Andy love their new life and have no doubt it has been the right decision to leave Sydney and pursue their passion for truffles.

They say it’s been important to become involved in the local community. They participate in several local organisations, including for agribusiness owners, and they have both become voluntary ambulance officers. This is important in Canyonleigh, where ambulance services have a long journey when they are called following a car or motorbike accident, a fall from a horse or even a plane crash at the nearby airfield.

According to the Australian Alpaca Association, the Australian alpaca industry has over 200,000 registered animals and is the second largest in the world, behind only Peru. Alpacas thrive in Australia, in small and large herds, and their soft footpads cause minimal soil damage compared with other ruminants. There is currently good demand for breeding, siring, fibre and agistment services and there is potential to develop a market for alpaca meat.

“Despite their appearance, they are a very robust livestock,” says Mick, “and they are much more intelligent than sheep, so they are far easier to work with.”

So what attracts a young woman like Rubey Williams to the alpaca industry?

“I grew up around them and they’ve always been part of my life,” she says thoughtfully. “Being around them and working with them is the place I feel most comfortable. The primary attraction is the animals themselves, but the social side is great. Alpaca shows are like a family reunion, it’s such a fun atmosphere and a great environment to be part of. The lifestyle it allows you to lead is something I hold in really high regard.”

Asked if she will definitely lead the next generation for Coolawarra and StoryBook, Rubey replies enthusiastically and without hesitation: “Oh yeah! I’m knee deep in it already.”

It is no surprise when you meet him to learn that Mick grew up in Inverell where his family had been breeding Fine Merino sheep and Poll Hereford cattle for three generations. He studied commerce and accounting at Charles Sturt University and worked for Toyota after he graduated. His wife Karen completed an MBA at Charles Sturt University and then worked in a variety of corporate roles.

They bought their first farm in 2002, near Bargo where Karen’s family were living, and Mick thought he would follow in his family’s footsteps.

“I had a plan to grow meat sheep with a self-replacing flock and then out of the blue Karen said: ‘I don’t want sheep, I want alpacas.’ I said: ‘Let me tell you a story about alpacas. I saw my first alpacas at The Sydney Royal Easter Show in about 1989. There were just two of them in a pen in the goat and pig pavilion. I knew what they were, but I said to my grandfather: ‘Pa, what are these?’ He said: ‘Son, they’re alpacas. Steer clear of them, they will be the feral goat of the 2000s.’

“I told Karen there was no fibre industry, no meat industry and no return on investment and that only iconic, well to do people could afford to have alpacas for their tax scheme. But despite everything I put forward, she said: ‘I don’t care, that’s what I want to do. They are such interesting and beautiful animals.’ And then she told me she’d done all this research and even spoken to Janie Forrest.”

Janie Forrest was an industry leader, having taken over the administration and management of Coolaroo Alpaca Stud in 1995 and then purchasing that business in 1998.

“We’d recently bought our first car and we thought we were so good because we’d saved up and paid for it in cash,” Mick recalls. “And then we bought our first couple of alpacas – and they cost more than the car.”

It was a very steep learning curve for the Williams.

The next few years were extremely challenging, first because of the drought, Anna would drive down to Canyonleigh and back mid-week, a four hour round trip early in the morning or late at night, to water the trees and hope they survived. They did. And then came the bushfires.

“The fires came so close to our property that we could view them on our north ridge line,” Andy recalls.

Their trufferie now consisted of 600 trees and remarkably they all survived both the drought and then the bushfires of 2019.

In July 2020, four years after they had planted their first trees, Anna received a call from a Victorian truffle consultant who had become a friend. 

“He’d been extremely supportive and he called to ask how we were going and if we’d looked for any truffles yet. I said it was too early and we wouldn’t have anything for another year. He told me to just go out and see what’s there. So, reluctantly, I started looking and when I got to the fourth tree the smell just hit me, straight in the face. I thought: ‘No, that can’t be a truffle.’ And then I started to dig – and there it was, our first truffle. 

“I ran up to the barn with tears streaming down my face and shouted: “Andy, we’ve got [expletive] truffles!”

Andy was on a work call and everyone on it could hear Anna’s joyful screams and see her jumping around in the background. It’s a very COVID story.

This first harvest didn’t produce enough truffles to sell, so they gave them as gifts to (very fortunate) friends.

“You don’t have to be great in the kitchen, an amazing chef, to use truffles,” Andy stresses. “You can just shave them on to simple meals – pasta, eggs, certain meats – and it makes a huge difference. You can put them on a toasted cheese sandwich and it tastes amazing.”

In 2021 they produced about 30 kilograms of truffles and in 2022 they produced slightly more. They sell them to a few local restaurants as well as clients in Sydney and Victoria.

Today the Truffle Barn boasts 520 French Oaks, which host Perigord French black truffles, and 88 Italian Stone Pines, which host white truffles (bianchetto) and will eventually also produce pine nuts.

Anna and Andy harvest their truffles with the help of their two German Shorthaired Pointers, Cyril and Nutmeg. 

“They are not ideal truffle dogs, because they are hunting dogs and get distracted,” Anna says, “but they are robust farm dogs and perform very well. They are trained to locate the truffle and then mark the soil. Some are trained to just sit, while I find it’s easier if they mark with their paws. They get a treat if they get it right.”

Anna and Andy have maintained their commitment to be chemical and pesticide free, using biodegradable weed mats and only adding lime to increase the soil PH. Their broader sustainability goals are achieved by the farm operating entirely on solar power, with battery storage, while all the water used is rainwater captured and stored in water tanks and dams. They have also improved the efficiency of water runoff into their dams.

Anna studied permaculture after she resigned from her corporate role, and this has significantly informed their management of The Truffle Barn.

“It has been brilliant. It’s really changed our life and how we live down here.”

Anna and Andy are still living in a cabin as they build the house they hope will be completed next year. Their new home, which sits beautifully on a hill above the Wollondilly River, reflects their desire to minimise their carbon footprint, both during construction and for the life of the building. No plasterboard or paint has been used. The floor is concrete and the main materials are timber and hemp. 

“Hemp is not commonly used as a building product in Australia, which is a shame because its insulation and fire rated properties are excellent.”

They have a large kitchen garden, which provides vegetables in all seasons, and there is a cellar under the house for storage of any excess produce. This year, they have produced their first commercial crop of garlic.

Anna and Andy love their new life and have no doubt it has been the right decision to leave Sydney and pursue their passion for truffles.

They say it’s been important to become involved in the local community. They participate in several local organisations, including for agribusiness owners, and they have both become voluntary ambulance officers. This is important in Canyonleigh, where ambulance services have a long journey when they are called following a car or motorbike accident, a fall from a horse or even a plane crash at the nearby airfield.

According to the Australian Alpaca Association, the Australian alpaca industry has over 200,000 registered animals and is the second largest in the world, behind only Peru. Alpacas thrive in Australia, in small and large herds, and their soft footpads cause minimal soil damage compared with other ruminants. There is currently good demand for breeding, siring, fibre and agistment services and there is potential to develop a market for alpaca meat.

“Despite their appearance, they are a very robust livestock,” says Mick, “and they are much more intelligent than sheep, so they are far easier to work with.”

So what attracts a young woman like Rubey Williams to the alpaca industry?

“I grew up around them and they’ve always been part of my life,” she says thoughtfully. “Being around them and working with them is the place I feel most comfortable. The primary attraction is the animals themselves, but the social side is great. Alpaca shows are like a family reunion, it’s such a fun atmosphere and a great environment to be part of. The lifestyle it allows you to lead is something I hold in really high regard.”

Asked if she will definitely lead the next generation for Coolawarra and StoryBook, Rubey replies enthusiastically and without hesitation: “Oh yeah! I’m knee deep in it already.”

Palace of Dreams will show at Carriageworks as part of Sydney Contemporary from 8 to 11 September.

Tamara Dean’s career achievements include being commissioned in 2018 to create In Our Nature that was presented at the Museum of Economic Botany (Adelaide Botanic Garden) for the Adelaide Biennale. She has been awarded the Goulburn Art Prize (2020); Moran Contemporary Photographic Prize (2019); Josephine Ulrick & Win Schubert Photography Award (2018); Meroogal Women’s Art Prize (2018); and the Olive Cotton Award (2011). Her work has been acquired by the National Gallery of Australia; Parliament House Art Collection, Canberra; Art Gallery of South Australia; Mordant Family Collection Australia; Artbank Australia; Balnaves Collection Australia; and Francis J Greenburger Collection (New York).

It is no surprise when you meet him to learn that Mick grew up in Inverell where his family had been breeding Fine Merino sheep and Poll Hereford cattle for three generations. He studied commerce and accounting at Charles Sturt University and worked for Toyota after he graduated. His wife Karen completed an MBA at Charles Sturt University and then worked in a variety of corporate roles.

They bought their first farm in 2002, near Bargo where Karen’s family were living, and Mick thought he would follow in his family’s footsteps.

“I had a plan to grow meat sheep with a self-replacing flock and then out of the blue Karen said: ‘I don’t want sheep, I want alpacas.’ I said: ‘Let me tell you a story about alpacas. I saw my first alpacas at The Sydney Royal Easter Show in about 1989. There were just two of them in a pen in the goat and pig pavilion. I knew what they were, but I said to my grandfather: ‘Pa, what are these?’ He said: ‘Son, they’re alpacas. Steer clear of them, they will be the feral goat of the 2000s.’

“I told Karen there was no fibre industry, no meat industry and no return on investment and that only iconic, well to do people could afford to have alpacas for their tax scheme. But despite everything I put forward, she said: ‘I don’t care, that’s what I want to do. They are such interesting and beautiful animals.’ And then she told me she’d done all this research and even spoken to Janie Forrest.”

Janie Forrest was an industry leader, having taken over the administration and management of Coolaroo Alpaca Stud in 1995 and then purchasing that business in 1998.

“We’d recently bought our first car and we thought we were so good because we’d saved up and paid for it in cash,” Mick recalls. “And then we bought our first couple of alpacas – and they cost more than the car.”

It was a very steep learning curve for the Williams.

“One of my great assets is ignorance,” Sharp says matter-of-factly while pouring us a cup of Irish Breakfast tea in his well heated kitchen. “I usually go into things completely and utterly unaware of what I’m up for. It’s only when I get halfway through that I realise that if I’d known at the beginning what I was going to end up doing, I wouldn’t have done it at all. But when you get to that point it’s usually too late to turn back.”

Sharp is certainly not turning back from any of the projects he has taken on since buying a 15 acre property four years ago from David Graham and David Kunde, known as The Two Davids and variously described in media reports as former restaurateurs, eastern suburbs developers and stylmeisters.  Known at the time as Rona Lodge, the property was advertised as a Grand Estate featuring wonderful formal and informal spaces, seven spacious bedrooms, a separate but adjoining two bedroom house, a billiard room, library, indoor swimming pool with spa and gym, tennis court and stables with dressage arena.

Asked if he has made many changes since he bought Rona Lodge four years ago, Sharp pauses for a moment before saying: “Like all these things, you start out thinking we’ll just make a little tweak here and a little tweak there – and before you know it you are doing lots of work and small jobs become enormous jobs.”

One easy thing to change was the property’s name. It is now called Thenford, named for the village in Oxfordshire where his great-grandfather was born. Other changes have not been as straightforward. As we walk through the house, Sharp notes that the walls and ceilings have been completely repainted, all the curtains replaced, a hallway removed, additional fireplaces installed, the veranda area reconfigured, several rooves have had to be replaced and the old stables have been converted into a laundry, cellar and gym.

The next few years were extremely challenging, first because of the drought, Anna would drive down to Canyonleigh and back mid-week, a four hour round trip early in the morning or late at night, to water the trees and hope they survived. They did. And then came the bushfires.

“The fires came so close to our property that we could view them on our north ridge line,” Andy recalls.

Their trufferie now consisted of 600 trees and remarkably they all survived both the drought and then the bushfires of 2019.

In July 2020, four years after they had planted their first trees, Anna received a call from a Victorian truffle consultant who had become a friend. 

“He’d been extremely supportive and he called to ask how we were going and if we’d looked for any truffles yet. I said it was too early and we wouldn’t have anything for another year. He told me to just go out and see what’s there. So, reluctantly, I started looking and when I got to the fourth tree the smell just hit me, straight in the face. I thought: ‘No, that can’t be a truffle.’ And then I started to dig – and there it was, our first truffle. 

“I ran up to the barn with tears streaming down my face and shouted: “Andy, we’ve got [expletive] truffles!”

Andy was on a work call and everyone on it could hear Anna’s joyful screams and see her jumping around in the background. It’s a very COVID story.

This first harvest didn’t produce enough truffles to sell, so they gave them as gifts to (very fortunate) friends.

“You don’t have to be great in the kitchen, an amazing chef, to use truffles,” Andy stresses. “You can just shave them on to simple meals – pasta, eggs, certain meats – and it makes a huge difference. You can put them on a toasted cheese sandwich and it tastes amazing.”

In 2021 they produced about 30 kilograms of truffles and in 2022 they produced slightly more. They sell them to a few local restaurants as well as clients in Sydney and Victoria.

Today the Truffle Barn boasts 520 French Oaks, which host Perigord French black truffles, and 88 Italian Stone Pines, which host white truffles (bianchetto) and will eventually also produce pine nuts.

Anna and Andy harvest their truffles with the help of their two German Shorthaired Pointers, Cyril and Nutmeg. 

“They are not ideal truffle dogs, because they are hunting dogs and get distracted,” Anna says, “but they are robust farm dogs and perform very well. They are trained to locate the truffle and then mark the soil. Some are trained to just sit, while I find it’s easier if they mark with their paws. They get a treat if they get it right.”

Anna and Andy have maintained their commitment to be chemical and pesticide free, using biodegradable weed mats and only adding lime to increase the soil PH. Their broader sustainability goals are achieved by the farm operating entirely on solar power, with battery storage, while all the water used is rainwater captured and stored in water tanks and dams. They have also improved the efficiency of water runoff into their dams.

Anna studied permaculture after she resigned from her corporate role, and this has significantly informed their management of The Truffle Barn.

“It has been brilliant. It’s really changed our life and how we live down here.”

Anna and Andy are still living in a cabin as they build the house they hope will be completed next year. Their new home, which sits beautifully on a hill above the Wollondilly River, reflects their desire to minimise their carbon footprint, both during construction and for the life of the building. No plasterboard or paint has been used. The floor is concrete and the main materials are timber and hemp. 

“Hemp is not commonly used as a building product in Australia, which is a shame because its insulation and fire rated properties are excellent.”

They have a large kitchen garden, which provides vegetables in all seasons, and there is a cellar under the house for storage of any excess produce. This year, they have produced their first commercial crop of garlic.

Anna and Andy love their new life and have no doubt it has been the right decision to leave Sydney and pursue their passion for truffles.

They say it’s been important to become involved in the local community. They participate in several local organisations, including for agribusiness owners, and they have both become voluntary ambulance officers. This is important in Canyonleigh, where ambulance services have a long journey when they are called following a car or motorbike accident, a fall from a horse or even a plane crash at the nearby airfield.

There is a memorial area dedicated to his father, who fought in World War II, and grandfather, who fought in World War I, featuring Lone Pines grown from seedlings from the famous Gallipoli battlefield surrounded by rosemary, which grows wild on the Gallipoli Peninsula and has become a traditional symbol of remembrance of Anzac Day. Fittingly, these plantings were the idea of his partner, Rosemary Cummins.

It is the middle of a particularly cold and wet Southern Highlands Winter and I can only imagine how magnificent the gardens will be in Spring.

We have completed our tour of the 15 acres Sharp bought four years ago and now we move to his latest venture. Two years ago, he bought an additional 200 acres from his neighbours, the McKennas, the original owners of Rona Lodge.

“I have managed to lose substantial sums of money running cattle,” Sharp says. “At The Moss Vale Show each year I joke that I should get the blue ribbon for the greatest loss per hectare in the district. So, when I bought this property, I decided I wanted to do something different. My manager said he knew a bloke named Tim Miller who might be interested in doing something with thoroughbred racehorses on my property. His wife is the daughter of friends of mine from Young, so there was a connection there. Long story short, we have a partnership and Tim runs it.”

Sharp grew up with horses in his home town of Young and his children, especially his daughter, were keen equestrians, but he describes himself as only a recreational rider.

So what exactly is his new horse business?

“We do horse breaking, so we take 12-month-old horses and prepare them to be ridden. And we do pre-training, which is taking horses that have never been to a race track and we put them on a race track. We have two race tracks here, one is 1,200 metres and one is 500 metres, and we have two sets of starting gates and barriers. This allows the horses to familiarise themselves with all that procedure.

“The third thing we do is rehabilitation work. We have an eight horse water walker, which is a pretty special piece of equipment. The horses walk around in a circle in a swimming pool with gates between them. It’s a bit like aquarobics for horses and it’s very good for their muscles and injury recovery. We also have an eight horse dry walker and a gallop speed treadmill, which is great for giving them exercise.

“The other thing we do is spelling – which is basically a horse holiday for a racehorse.”

Thenford Farm only started taking horses in February 2021, and there are currently 45 horses on the property. When all the work is finished, it will be able to accommodate about 100 racehorses. The amount of infrastructure is enormous and I ask how many kilometres of fencing he has installed.

“The original quote was for 10 kilometres, but we have ended up with 16 to 17 kilometres,” he says thoughtfully. That is a lot of posts and rails.

For Sharp, Thenford Farm combines bucolic charm with economic sense.

“As the value of land increases in The Southern Highlands, and it’s increased quite dramatically in the past two or three years, it becomes increasingly less economic to run cattle or sheep. So what do you do to maintain the farm-like environment? The best way is with horses, because they are usually expensive things and the cost of the land doesn’t matter as much with horses as it does with cattle and sheep. 

“You also retain a beautiful rural outlook featuring nice fences and green paddocks with horses sitting in them.

“The racehorse industry continues to expand and the historic infrastructure for the industry is now in heavily urbanised areas. The ability to expand that infrastructure, and even keep it, diminishes as time goes by. So the Southern Highlands is a great spot for the growth of the racehorse industry.”

There are also important employment benefits. “If I had 200 acres with cattle on them, I’d probably employ one person,” Sharp notes. “We already employ nine people and we will probably have 14 or 15 when we are fully developed. A lot of people in the racehorse industry make it into a career. They might start out as a stable hand and then work up to different roles, whether it’s a breaker or a trainer or a rider. It’s a great utilisation of the land for this district.”

When he was elected to Parliament as the first Member for the new seat of Gilmore in 1984, the electorate included The Southern Highlands. When the boundaries moved following a redistribution a decade later, Sharp moved to the neighbouring seat of Hume – retaining representation of The Southern Highlands. He has remained in the region since he retired from Parliament in 1998.

For Sharp, The Southern Highlands is home and perfectly located halfway between the two cities where he spends a lot of time – Sydney and Canberra. It’s also easy for his children to visit and stay, as they do regularly. He hates moving house and hopes he won’t be doing so again.

It is no surprise when you meet him to learn that Mick grew up in Inverell where his family had been breeding Fine Merino sheep and Poll Hereford cattle for three generations. He studied commerce and accounting at Charles Sturt University and worked for Toyota after he graduated. His wife Karen completed an MBA at Charles Sturt University and then worked in a variety of corporate roles.

They bought their first farm in 2002, near Bargo where Karen’s family were living, and Mick thought he would follow in his family’s footsteps.

“I had a plan to grow meat sheep with a self-replacing flock and then out of the blue Karen said: ‘I don’t want sheep, I want alpacas.’ I said: ‘Let me tell you a story about alpacas. I saw my first alpacas at The Sydney Royal Easter Show in about 1989. There were just two of them in a pen in the goat and pig pavilion. I knew what they were, but I said to my grandfather: ‘Pa, what are these?’ He said: ‘Son, they’re alpacas. Steer clear of them, they will be the feral goat of the 2000s.’

“I told Karen there was no fibre industry, no meat industry and no return on investment and that only iconic, well to do people could afford to have alpacas for their tax scheme. But despite everything I put forward, she said: ‘I don’t care, that’s what I want to do. They are such interesting and beautiful animals.’ And then she told me she’d done all this research and even spoken to Janie Forrest.”

Janie Forrest was an industry leader, having taken over the administration and management of Coolaroo Alpaca Stud in 1995 and then purchasing that business in 1998.

“We’d recently bought our first car and we thought we were so good because we’d saved up and paid for it in cash,” Mick recalls. “And then we bought our first couple of alpacas – and they cost more than the car.”

It was a very steep learning curve for the Williams.

The next few years were extremely challenging, first because of the drought, Anna would drive down to Canyonleigh and back mid-week, a four hour round trip early in the morning or late at night, to water the trees and hope they survived. They did. And then came the bushfires.

“The fires came so close to our property that we could view them on our north ridge line,” Andy recalls.

Their trufferie now consisted of 600 trees and remarkably they all survived both the drought and then the bushfires of 2019.

In July 2020, four years after they had planted their first trees, Anna received a call from a Victorian truffle consultant who had become a friend. 

“He’d been extremely supportive and he called to ask how we were going and if we’d looked for any truffles yet. I said it was too early and we wouldn’t have anything for another year. He told me to just go out and see what’s there. So, reluctantly, I started looking and when I got to the fourth tree the smell just hit me, straight in the face. I thought: ‘No, that can’t be a truffle.’ And then I started to dig – and there it was, our first truffle. 

“I ran up to the barn with tears streaming down my face and shouted: “Andy, we’ve got [expletive] truffles!”

Andy was on a work call and everyone on it could hear Anna’s joyful screams and see her jumping around in the background. It’s a very COVID story.

This first harvest didn’t produce enough truffles to sell, so they gave them as gifts to (very fortunate) friends.

“You don’t have to be great in the kitchen, an amazing chef, to use truffles,” Andy stresses. “You can just shave them on to simple meals – pasta, eggs, certain meats – and it makes a huge difference. You can put them on a toasted cheese sandwich and it tastes amazing.”

In 2021 they produced about 30 kilograms of truffles and in 2022 they produced slightly more. They sell them to a few local restaurants as well as clients in Sydney and Victoria.

Today the Truffle Barn boasts 520 French Oaks, which host Perigord French black truffles, and 88 Italian Stone Pines, which host white truffles (bianchetto) and will eventually also produce pine nuts.

Anna and Andy harvest their truffles with the help of their two German Shorthaired Pointers, Cyril and Nutmeg. 

“They are not ideal truffle dogs, because they are hunting dogs and get distracted,” Anna says, “but they are robust farm dogs and perform very well. They are trained to locate the truffle and then mark the soil. Some are trained to just sit, while I find it’s easier if they mark with their paws. They get a treat if they get it right.”

Anna and Andy have maintained their commitment to be chemical and pesticide free, using biodegradable weed mats and only adding lime to increase the soil PH. Their broader sustainability goals are achieved by the farm operating entirely on solar power, with battery storage, while all the water used is rainwater captured and stored in water tanks and dams. They have also improved the efficiency of water runoff into their dams.

Anna studied permaculture after she resigned from her corporate role, and this has significantly informed their management of The Truffle Barn.

“It has been brilliant. It’s really changed our life and how we live down here.”

Anna and Andy are still living in a cabin as they build the house they hope will be completed next year. Their new home, which sits beautifully on a hill above the Wollondilly River, reflects their desire to minimise their carbon footprint, both during construction and for the life of the building. No plasterboard or paint has been used. The floor is concrete and the main materials are timber and hemp. 

“Hemp is not commonly used as a building product in Australia, which is a shame because its insulation and fire rated properties are excellent.”

They have a large kitchen garden, which provides vegetables in all seasons, and there is a cellar under the house for storage of any excess produce. This year, they have produced their first commercial crop of garlic.

Anna and Andy love their new life and have no doubt it has been the right decision to leave Sydney and pursue their passion for truffles.

They say it’s been important to become involved in the local community. They participate in several local organisations, including for agribusiness owners, and they have both become voluntary ambulance officers. This is important in Canyonleigh, where ambulance services have a long journey when they are called following a car or motorbike accident, a fall from a horse or even a plane crash at the nearby airfield.

It is no surprise when you meet him to learn that Mick grew up in Inverell where his family had been breeding Fine Merino sheep and Poll Hereford cattle for three generations. He studied commerce and accounting at Charles Sturt University and worked for Toyota after he graduated. His wife Karen completed an MBA at Charles Sturt University and then worked in a variety of corporate roles.

They bought their first farm in 2002, near Bargo where Karen’s family were living, and Mick thought he would follow in his family’s footsteps.

“I had a plan to grow meat sheep with a self-replacing flock and then out of the blue Karen said: ‘I don’t want sheep, I want alpacas.’ I said: ‘Let me tell you a story about alpacas. I saw my first alpacas at The Sydney Royal Easter Show in about 1989. There were just two of them in a pen in the goat and pig pavilion. I knew what they were, but I said to my grandfather: ‘Pa, what are these?’ He said: ‘Son, they’re alpacas. Steer clear of them, they will be the feral goat of the 2000s.’

“I told Karen there was no fibre industry, no meat industry and no return on investment and that only iconic, well to do people could afford to have alpacas for their tax scheme. But despite everything I put forward, she said: ‘I don’t care, that’s what I want to do. They are such interesting and beautiful animals.’ And then she told me she’d done all this research and even spoken to Janie Forrest.”

Janie Forrest was an industry leader, having taken over the administration and management of Coolaroo Alpaca Stud in 1995 and then purchasing that business in 1998.

“We’d recently bought our first car and we thought we were so good because we’d saved up and paid for it in cash,” Mick recalls. “And then we bought our first couple of alpacas – and they cost more than the car.”

It was a very steep learning curve for the Williams.

The next few years were extremely challenging, first because of the drought, Anna would drive down to Canyonleigh and back mid-week, a four hour round trip early in the morning or late at night, to water the trees and hope they survived. They did. And then came the bushfires.

“The fires came so close to our property that we could view them on our north ridge line,” Andy recalls.

Their trufferie now consisted of 600 trees and remarkably they all survived both the drought and then the bushfires of 2019.

In July 2020, four years after they had planted their first trees, Anna received a call from a Victorian truffle consultant who had become a friend. 

“He’d been extremely supportive and he called to ask how we were going and if we’d looked for any truffles yet. I said it was too early and we wouldn’t have anything for another year. He told me to just go out and see what’s there. So, reluctantly, I started looking and when I got to the fourth tree the smell just hit me, straight in the face. I thought: ‘No, that can’t be a truffle.’ And then I started to dig – and there it was, our first truffle. 

“I ran up to the barn with tears streaming down my face and shouted: “Andy, we’ve got [expletive] truffles!”

Andy was on a work call and everyone on it could hear Anna’s joyful screams and see her jumping around in the background. It’s a very COVID story.

This first harvest didn’t produce enough truffles to sell, so they gave them as gifts to (very fortunate) friends.

“You don’t have to be great in the kitchen, an amazing chef, to use truffles,” Andy stresses. “You can just shave them on to simple meals – pasta, eggs, certain meats – and it makes a huge difference. You can put them on a toasted cheese sandwich and it tastes amazing.”

In 2021 they produced about 30 kilograms of truffles and in 2022 they produced slightly more. They sell them to a few local restaurants as well as clients in Sydney and Victoria.

Today the Truffle Barn boasts 520 French Oaks, which host Perigord French black truffles, and 88 Italian Stone Pines, which host white truffles (bianchetto) and will eventually also produce pine nuts.

Anna and Andy harvest their truffles with the help of their two German Shorthaired Pointers, Cyril and Nutmeg. 

“They are not ideal truffle dogs, because they are hunting dogs and get distracted,” Anna says, “but they are robust farm dogs and perform very well. They are trained to locate the truffle and then mark the soil. Some are trained to just sit, while I find it’s easier if they mark with their paws. They get a treat if they get it right.”

Anna and Andy have maintained their commitment to be chemical and pesticide free, using biodegradable weed mats and only adding lime to increase the soil PH. Their broader sustainability goals are achieved by the farm operating entirely on solar power, with battery storage, while all the water used is rainwater captured and stored in water tanks and dams. They have also improved the efficiency of water runoff into their dams.

Anna studied permaculture after she resigned from her corporate role, and this has significantly informed their management of The Truffle Barn.

“It has been brilliant. It’s really changed our life and how we live down here.”

Anna and Andy are still living in a cabin as they build the house they hope will be completed next year. Their new home, which sits beautifully on a hill above the Wollondilly River, reflects their desire to minimise their carbon footprint, both during construction and for the life of the building. No plasterboard or paint has been used. The floor is concrete and the main materials are timber and hemp. 

“Hemp is not commonly used as a building product in Australia, which is a shame because its insulation and fire rated properties are excellent.”

They have a large kitchen garden, which provides vegetables in all seasons, and there is a cellar under the house for storage of any excess produce. This year, they have produced their first commercial crop of garlic.

Anna and Andy love their new life and have no doubt it has been the right decision to leave Sydney and pursue their passion for truffles.

They say it’s been important to become involved in the local community. They participate in several local organisations, including for agribusiness owners, and they have both become voluntary ambulance officers. This is important in Canyonleigh, where ambulance services have a long journey when they are called following a car or motorbike accident, a fall from a horse or even a plane crash at the nearby airfield.

It is no surprise when you meet him to learn that Mick grew up in Inverell where his family had been breeding Fine Merino sheep and Poll Hereford cattle for three generations. He studied commerce and accounting at Charles Sturt University and worked for Toyota after he graduated. His wife Karen completed an MBA at Charles Sturt University and then worked in a variety of corporate roles.

They bought their first farm in 2002, near Bargo where Karen’s family were living, and Mick thought he would follow in his family’s footsteps.

“I had a plan to grow meat sheep with a self-replacing flock and then out of the blue Karen said: ‘I don’t want sheep, I want alpacas.’ I said: ‘Let me tell you a story about alpacas. I saw my first alpacas at The Sydney Royal Easter Show in about 1989. There were just two of them in a pen in the goat and pig pavilion. I knew what they were, but I said to my grandfather: ‘Pa, what are these?’ He said: ‘Son, they’re alpacas. Steer clear of them, they will be the feral goat of the 2000s.’

“I told Karen there was no fibre industry, no meat industry and no return on investment and that only iconic, well to do people could afford to have alpacas for their tax scheme. But despite everything I put forward, she said: ‘I don’t care, that’s what I want to do. They are such interesting and beautiful animals.’ And then she told me she’d done all this research and even spoken to Janie Forrest.”

Janie Forrest was an industry leader, having taken over the administration and management of Coolaroo Alpaca Stud in 1995 and then purchasing that business in 1998.

“We’d recently bought our first car and we thought we were so good because we’d saved up and paid for it in cash,” Mick recalls. “And then we bought our first couple of alpacas – and they cost more than the car.”

It was a very steep learning curve for the Williams.

The next few years were extremely challenging, first because of the drought, Anna would drive down to Canyonleigh and back mid-week, a four hour round trip early in the morning or late at night, to water the trees and hope they survived. They did. And then came the bushfires.

“The fires came so close to our property that we could view them on our north ridge line,” Andy recalls.

Their trufferie now consisted of 600 trees and remarkably they all survived both the drought and then the bushfires of 2019.

In July 2020, four years after they had planted their first trees, Anna received a call from a Victorian truffle consultant who had become a friend. 

“He’d been extremely supportive and he called to ask how we were going and if we’d looked for any truffles yet. I said it was too early and we wouldn’t have anything for another year. He told me to just go out and see what’s there. So, reluctantly, I started looking and when I got to the fourth tree the smell just hit me, straight in the face. I thought: ‘No, that can’t be a truffle.’ And then I started to dig – and there it was, our first truffle. 

“I ran up to the barn with tears streaming down my face and shouted: “Andy, we’ve got [expletive] truffles!”

Andy was on a work call and everyone on it could hear Anna’s joyful screams and see her jumping around in the background. It’s a very COVID story.

This first harvest didn’t produce enough truffles to sell, so they gave them as gifts to (very fortunate) friends.

“You don’t have to be great in the kitchen, an amazing chef, to use truffles,” Andy stresses. “You can just shave them on to simple meals – pasta, eggs, certain meats – and it makes a huge difference. You can put them on a toasted cheese sandwich and it tastes amazing.”

In 2021 they produced about 30 kilograms of truffles and in 2022 they produced slightly more. They sell them to a few local restaurants as well as clients in Sydney and Victoria.

Today the Truffle Barn boasts 520 French Oaks, which host Perigord French black truffles, and 88 Italian Stone Pines, which host white truffles (bianchetto) and will eventually also produce pine nuts.

Anna and Andy harvest their truffles with the help of their two German Shorthaired Pointers, Cyril and Nutmeg. 

“They are not ideal truffle dogs, because they are hunting dogs and get distracted,” Anna says, “but they are robust farm dogs and perform very well. They are trained to locate the truffle and then mark the soil. Some are trained to just sit, while I find it’s easier if they mark with their paws. They get a treat if they get it right.”

Anna and Andy have maintained their commitment to be chemical and pesticide free, using biodegradable weed mats and only adding lime to increase the soil PH. Their broader sustainability goals are achieved by the farm operating entirely on solar power, with battery storage, while all the water used is rainwater captured and stored in water tanks and dams. They have also improved the efficiency of water runoff into their dams.

Anna studied permaculture after she resigned from her corporate role, and this has significantly informed their management of The Truffle Barn.

“It has been brilliant. It’s really changed our life and how we live down here.”

Anna and Andy are still living in a cabin as they build the house they hope will be completed next year. Their new home, which sits beautifully on a hill above the Wollondilly River, reflects their desire to minimise their carbon footprint, both during construction and for the life of the building. No plasterboard or paint has been used. The floor is concrete and the main materials are timber and hemp. 

“Hemp is not commonly used as a building product in Australia, which is a shame because its insulation and fire rated properties are excellent.”

They have a large kitchen garden, which provides vegetables in all seasons, and there is a cellar under the house for storage of any excess produce. This year, they have produced their first commercial crop of garlic.

Anna and Andy love their new life and have no doubt it has been the right decision to leave Sydney and pursue their passion for truffles.

They say it’s been important to become involved in the local community. They participate in several local organisations, including for agribusiness owners, and they have both become voluntary ambulance officers. This is important in Canyonleigh, where ambulance services have a long journey when they are called following a car or motorbike accident, a fall from a horse or even a plane crash at the nearby airfield.