A 100-YEAR-OLD FARMHOUSE in a valley at the bottom of the world sounds like the setting for a magical, slightly mysterious story, but the reality, says Michelle, was beige. “The house was beige inside and out, with cheap pine panelling and plenty of vinyl on the walls and floors. It was OK, but I certainly didn’t love it.”
The weatherboard house was one of the few bumps in a road that carried Michelle, her husband Leo and daughter Elsa from inner-western Sydney to a rural landscape in Tassie. They’d flown down to visit friends in October 2004 and, taken with the countryside around Hobart – the orchards,
