Life Lately...

Where We Are Living & The Plans Moving Forward:

As many of you know, last year we moved away from our cellar door. The primary reason for this was to test the waters… to see what it felt like to live away from work.

We are thirteen years into running Down The Rabbit Hole, but we only opened our cellar door a couple of months before we fell pregnant with Pippa, so it felt like we dove into early parenthood and our first few years of a wildly busy hospitality business (which honestly felt like a whole separate beast compared to just doing the wine) all at the once. It felt like a lot… a beautifully big, full-to-the-brim, few years. Living in that little house we renovated served it’s purpose, but we were craving establishing our forever family home. And living where our staff took their lunch breaks, and visitors could basically see straight into our living room just wasn’t it. There were so many wonderful things about living there, but so many reasons why we needed a change.

We had often dreamt of living closer to the ocean. Somewhere that we could walk to the beach. There’s a special little pocket on our coastline, which for years we would daydream about and imagine ourselves living there one day. We even did letterbox drops years ago, saying that if in the years to come… anyone decides to sell… please call us. However, two years ago we decided to let go of that dream (or so we thought) as it just felt out of reach. Houses rarely sold, and even if they did, it all felt a little unattainable. If we used the land we already own, it felt like we could move forward with our dream build because we already had the land, so we talked ourselves into it and began focusing on that.

We spent months designing our dream home, which we had planned to build at the back end of the land, where the almond trees meet the vines. I got very excited, it was beautiful! The current farmhouse would become the office space for the cellar door team. Once we had our floor plans finalised, my Dad quietly suggested that before we moved ahead, we rent his friend’s house by the ocean, leave our little bubble and see how it felt to not live at work. Given that if we had pressed go, and gone ahead with the build, we would have likely never left, this felt like a good idea.

Within one week of moving into the rental, Dom turned to me and said, “I can’t go back. We need to find land elsewhere to build.” For him I think there was something very energetic about living where we worked. There were no off days. If someone didn’t come find him to just ask a quick question, he could see, hear or feel that he was needed. Stepping away, on his days off, things worked themselves out without him. On week two, when he had his day off, Pippa turned to me, smiled and said, “Is no one coming to take Dad away today?”. We had all become so used to it, we didn’t realise just how calming it would feel to move offsite.

So we hit pause on everything while we reassessed. We didn’t know how long it would take to find the right land, but we knew we needed to create our family home away from work. In the meantime, renting and living right on the water feels ok too :)

Then, late last year I was sitting in the backyard at the rental and had what I can only describe as an overwhelming feeling, like a lightning bolt. I knew there was something I needed to see and I jumped online. Sure enough, a house in our dream pocket by the ocean had just been listed. I tried to call Dom, but his phone was busy, so I just messaged him, ‘Oh my goodness. CALL ME.’

He messaged straight back, ‘I don’t even need to ask you what it’s about. I’m on the phone right now, one of the neighbours called me.’ The fact that we were both alerted at the exact same moment felt a little serendipitous.

Unfortunately for us, the agent had strictly advised the owner to go to auction. So we then had a month of anxiously awaiting the auction, dropping past and wandering around often, playing with the kids on the land surrounding, and praying, so much praying. On my birthday Dom and I even went and sat on the balcony and had a bubbles (most definitely not allowed, but we were manifesting it being our home so much, that it already felt like it was).

We decided Dom would go solo to the auction, as I wouldn’t be able to hide my complete and total emotion attachment. I went for a walk to the beach with the kids, and Dom put the phone on speaker on the ground beside him so I could listen to the whole thing. It got intense, with lots of fast bidding back and forth at the end. When it came down to the “Going once, twice…. SOLD” moment, I was yelling, “WAS IT US?!”. It felt like ten minutes before Dom picked up the phone and said, “we got it!”

I picked up the kids and started screaming (with joy) and running down the track towards the property. Two different people stopped me to see if I was ok / was anyone chasing us.

We got it.

WE GOT IT.

Our dream spot. A magical childhood for the kids. The place where I imagine growing old with Dom.

We have started designing the build (adjusting what we designed previously to work on a very, very differently shaped block). But the challenges of this block have already led to some really interesting aspects and design choices that have me feeling very excited.

I’ll be using Substack to share more of the process, so stay tuned.

As some of you may know we have just returned after being away in Italy. It was such a beautiful, beautiful trip, and we feel so thankful we were able to still go. I did allude to something going on over on instagram, but I wasn’t in a place to share at the time… our trip was very delayed as the day before we were due to leave, Dom’s Dad had a major heart attack. He was without a pulse for 23 minutes, and thanks to a few strangers who performed CPR on him the entire time, he survived - with full brain function - CPR works and absolutely saved his life. It’s all a long story, he was in a coma for a good week at the start, but he has just moved back home after a very big and long recovery period, but is doing better than anyone could have imagined. Certainly slower, but very present and very happy. Which is the greatest gift. Truly feels like a miracle and we are singing hallelujah every day.

I love that coming home after being away always feels nice. It makes me feel so thankful for this life, that coming home feels so incredibly joyful.

Winter on The Fleurieu Peninsula is cold, but beautiful and interspersed with some gloriously sunny winter days. The perfect time for cozy cellar door days and evenings.

We are so excited to dig back into work, we have some really exciting things on the horizon. But in the meantime, if you haven’t tried the new vintage of our rosé you absolutely must pop by - it’s divine!