From Corporate to Country

Tania Lawrence was a big-city girl, a late-night girl in her late 20s, spending four nights a week at a Ponsonby bar, managing a large call centre, running on adrenalin. Then she met a boy…

Words: Kate Coughlan   Photographs: Mark Smith

Mudbrick Lodge lies in the Rai Valley between
Nelson and Blenheim.

“YES, THAT’S ME, THAT’S what I was doing. Living the corporate life, partying, at the Lime Bar most nights, Verve Cliquot tattooed on my ankle, running, running. Then I had a whirlwind summer romance and we decided to create the picture-perfect life together.

“He came from Dunedin, there was no way he was going to move to Auckland and there was no way I’d live in Dunedin. So we settled for somewhere halfway between our two homes – anywhere between Blenheim and Nelson. We turned our lives upside down, reinvented ourselves – corporate went country.

“We started searching on the internet for lodges or businesses. Mudbrick Lodge in the Rai Valley was built by former All Black Bluey Arnold and his wife Bernice. We stayed with them for a few days while we scouted the area and looked at a range of different properties. I just fell in love with Mudbrick and wanted to live there. It is a10ha property with 4ha in garden.

“Finally Bluey and Bernice said we might be able to buy it and it was like going for a job interview rather than a property settlement…but we made an offer and they accepted.

“When I was in Nelson one of the council staff said to me, ‘But you can’t live in the Rai Valley, it rains all the time.’ ‘Mate,’ I said to him, ‘I’m from Auckland’.”

Tania’s home in Auckland’s trendy Westmere had doubled in value during her seven-year ownership and its sale provided for the purchase of the lodge and land. “I remember driving alone from the Picton ferry toward the Rai Valley, where I knew not a single person, and thinking: What have I done? All my worldly possessions and I are heading for the Rai Valley – I must be mad.”

Now, just two years down the track, Tania is consumed with passion for her home, for the Rai Valley and its community. What about the boy? Valley life wasn’t for him and he disappeared from the scene. “When he first left, my friends said ‘Good, you can come home to Auckland now’. I bawled my eyes out, thinking I can’t go from here now, I love the place so much. I thought, no, when things get a bit hard you don’t just disappear. I love these people here. My neighbours knew that I wasn’t coping. They came to cook for the guests and one day someone just turned up to mow the lawns, saying ‘I know you’ve got a booking’.

“I love my lifestyle here and I love my friends. They’re people who do what they say they’re going to do; straight-up-and-down people. They have the time to stop and chat, they have time for other people.

“One thing that cracked me up when I first came here was that I kept asking people for dinner. [Tania trained as a chef and enjoys entertaining.] I found it amazing that in the city I would entertain at 7.30 at night…but here people would look at me strangely as most of the community is up at 5.00am milking cows. People stop in a lot more during the day for a cuppa and a chat which often stretches out to an hour or two.

“You can be in your Auckland townhouse, depressed and feeling lonely, and there are hundreds of people within a few floors of you, people just through the wall. Down here, there can be no one around for miles and I never feel lonely. Nor do I feel alone.

“Now that I’ve made the break from all the corporate stress I don’t need the six-figure salary to lead the life I want. There is no guaranteed income here but being your own boss is fantastic. No way will I ever go back.”

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