Motherland Australia

In June this year, Nikita Hayes was home with her two little boys when their house caught fire. They escaped, but within hours, almost everything they owned was gone. Just a few months on, she’s speaking publicly in depth about what happened for the first time. But Nikita’s story begins long before that — growing up on a sprawling cattle station outside Alice Springs, going droving, meeting her husband Luke and, just eight months later, being the one to propose… and trust me, where and how sh...

Charlie Arnott’s great-great-great-grandfather founded Arnott’s Biscuits. His grandfather helped create the Tim Tam. And Charlie became the first in five generations to forge a different path. At just 25, he unexpectedly took over his family’s farm near Boorowa in New South Wales. But behind Charlie’s life on the land is a deeply personal journey of figuring out who he is, what makes him happy, and the kind of man, husband and father he wants to be. Today, Charlie opens up about the beliefs h...

Kristie Bargenquast was pregnant with her son, Mitchell, when she went searching for answers about her own health. Everyday movements were becoming harder, and when Mitchell was just over a year old, Kristie was diagnosed with limb-girdle muscular dystrophy, a rare genetic condition causing progressive muscle weakness. Suddenly, she was navigating new motherhood alongside a disability that was changing what her body could do. Today, Mitchell is 11 and has become her beautiful right-hand man, ...

Brendan Cullen lived 600 kilometres from the nearest beach when he decided to become an open-water swimmer. Training before dawn in lakes and dams, he went on to swim the English Channel in 2022 - spending 17 hours in the water and covering 64 kilometres. But Brendan will tell you that wasn’t the hardest thing he’s ever done. A lifelong sheep and cattle farmer from Broken Hill, Brendan spent decades carrying childhood trauma he didn’t speak about. In 2015, struggling with depression, he walke...

Amie Penny was born and raised in suburban Sydney and was building a promising career at Macquarie Bank when one weekend on a family farm near Cowra changed everything. Within a month, she’d quit her job and moved into a rundown farmhouse with no job, no real plan and no idea how to farm. It was there she met her husband Jason, but building the life they wanted would take almost 15 years, countless moves and plenty of sacrifice. Amie raised their two children largely without a village while J...