Where it all Began

 First I'd like to start off by introducing myself.  My name is Christie and I am the owner- operator of the beautiful Karinya Farmstay here in the gorgeous Central Coast hinterland, at  Dooralong Valley. I am married to a wonderful husband, who you'll hear about in a moment and two precious children,  Evie our animal whispering soft soul, who is 7 and Harry our sporty sweet little man, who is 5.

My goodness where to begin. Well this is my very first blog, I honestly have no idea what I'm doing, I'm not even sure if this will upload properly when I click post, lol. This is definitely one big learning curve for me. I'm going to start right back at the beginning where the journey of Karinya Farmstay began.

I have lived on the Central Coast all my life and have been a school teacher with the amazing Department of Education for the past 21 years.  Teaching is an incredibly rewarding job and I have loved every moment of it. When I had my beautiful 2 babies, I took maternity leave for 3 years and loved every bit (well not every bit lol) of being a stay home mum. During that time I started a high tea events business and fell so in love with the events and hospitality industry that I knew one day I really really wanted to make a real go of either owning an events centre or a wedding/ conference centre or a rural property where I could host events. So thus became the journey of searching for a rural property. It took over 125 house inspections every Saturday and Sunday for over a year (My poor children and husband) dragging them in and out of the car every weekend to see these houses. But each and every one i just knew it wasn't the one. I knew that I would just know when I had 'found the one'. And find the one we did!! As soon as we arrived at 971 Jilliby Road Dooralong, my heart skipped a beat (literally) and the property completely took my breath away. The most hillarious thing is at the time my husband was in the off shore oil and gas industry so he was not even here,  nor did he get to see the place,  before we bought it!! What a man!!! Purchased site unseen..... crazy.... I still to this day can't thank him enough for trusting me on just how beautiful it was, trusting me enough to put an offer in and sign the contracts before he got home from the rig. Thank you Micheal. I don't mean to sound cheesy saying this but you are the reason we have our beautiful Karinya Farmstay today. So we packed up our house at Green Point and made the big move up here to Dooralong. After my 3 years maternity leave I decided to go back to teaching 3 days a week but my heart was still being pulled towards hospitality. I love people. I love entertaining for them,  organising for them,  feeding them,  making up a good ole fashion cocktail,  having them sleep over the weekend,  just quality time with quality people. I truly have been blessed with beautiful beautiful friends in my life. Once on the farm,  my ideas were running wild. Do we host weddings,  do we host high tea events,  do we have business retreats, or yoga retreats, or do we have a Farmstay. Or do we try and do it all!!! Lol. So we started by taking the very first step.  We bought 2 of every animal we could find. Lol. 2 sheep, 2 horses, 2 cows,  2 ducks,  2 hens (which has turned into 5 hens lol) 2 rabbits, 2 turkeys, 2 cats and a dog and soon to pick up 2 alpacas. Thus the beginning of Karinya Farmstay. On my next post I'll tell you what we did next. So far I'm absolutely besotted by this journey and so excited for the things to come. 

Until next post....

Take care 

Christie. X

www.karinyafarmstay.com.au