Chris Bath: How I Found My Place
Whenever Chris Bath serves up broccoli for dinner, it’s not just a meal, it is a personal vindication. “I just won a two-year battle to grow broccoli,” she tells me happily. “First I planted it too early, then I used the wrong manure, but now I have harvested the first two perfectly-formed florets of broccoli.”
Chris’ vegetables gardens – yes, that’s in the plural – are among her favourite places. “They’re where I spend most of my time. I love the toil, the challenge, the constant maintenance, the result. I love watching nature in action. Because they’re all organic, I’m always battling all sorts of stuff, from cabbage moths to slugs, but I love the fact that it’s part of the cycle of life.”
Chris says that when she bought her farm and moved to the country five years ago, she finally found the place she was always meant to be. “It takes a while to find the place that’s right for you, unless you’re very wise at a very young age. It’s taken me a while to come back to what I’ve always loved, which is the land, and to realise how important it is for me,” she said.
Despite being born in the suburbs of western Sydney, Chris says she’s always had a love of wild places, one that she discovered while studying at a regional university. She recently discovered it’s a trait that runs in her family, after taking part in SBS’s Who Do You Think You Are?
“Several of my forebears had a genuine love of the wilder parts of the world,” she says. “My three times great grandfather on my father’s side was a shepherd who loved living in rural areas. My two times great grandfather on my mother’s side was a seaman but he loved the Australian bush. They showed me a photo of him with binoculars, which was a bizarre moment, as I carry binoculars with me pretty much everywhere I go.
“I don’t know whether there’s something genetic, some weird muscle memory that gets handed down, but I’ve been to a number of wilder parts of the world where I have literally had a quiet sob at the beauty of being there.”
“I was not quite 50 and it was a really big decision, but I knew I needed to trust my gut instinct … my boss didn’t believe I didn’t have another job to go to. He said, ‘Nobody ever does this’ and I said, ‘Well, watch me.’”
Chris says that certain parts of her property give her that same transcendent feeling. “There is a place on our property that was important to the first Australians who used to travel through here. I don’t have 60 million years of history with the land, but when I sit there I definitely feel something. Just sitting here looking at the landscape is very restorative.”
The journey to finding her special place started with a decision to walk away from her TV career after almost 20 years with Channel 7. “I didn’t know exactly what I was going to do but I knew that I needed a break. I was not quite 50 and it was a really big decision, but I knew I needed to trust my gut instinct. When I went to resign, my boss didn’t believe I didn’t have another job to go to. He said, “Nobody ever does this” and I said, “Well, watch me.”
Having quit her job, Chris resumed her search for the perfect patch of land, a quest she had started and given up on several years previously. “I drove real estate agents crazy with my list of what I wanted,” says the keen birdwatcher. “It had to be reasonably close to Sydney, it had to have bushland and a few cleared paddocks, so we would get raptors flying over, and some rocks, so we would get rock warblers. When I got here, I knew we had found the right place. It sounds crazy to have bought real estate based on a feeling, but I knew this was what was going to restore me.”
Chris hasn’t walked away from the media entirely – she reads the weekend news for Channel 10 – but she spends most of her days bushwalking, bird watching and, of course, working in the vegie garden. Her ambitions are focused on the property: she wants to do a permaculture course and start rehabilitating the soil.
“Every now and then I run into people who say, ‘How are you?’ and you can hear in their tone that what they’re actually saying is, ‘You blew up your career – are you all right?’ I’m good. This is where I’m meant to be.”
Chris Bath’s episode of Who Do You Think You Are? airs 7.30pm, Tuesday 20 July on SBS and can be seen anytime at SBS On Demand.
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Interview_ Ute Junker
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