After making the big move west to Eyre Peninsula, the McKenzie family is loving life in Kimba.
The trope of the sea change is one we hear often – packing it all in for a life by the water, a well-worn path to salty air and quiet adventure.
But for Glen and Monique McKenzie and their three children, 15-year-old twins Tom and Meg and 11-year-old Dan, the reverse has been just what they needed.
Two years ago, they traded beachside lives in Adelaide and Glen’s career in the water police for the dusty, rolling hills of Glenroy, a slice of farming land just out of Kimba, miles from the nearest coastline.
For Glen, it’s a long way from a life on and in the water to one in the paddock, but the broad smile on his face is testament to a decision well made.
“I never really joined the police force to be a police officer, as crazy as that sounds,” he says.
It was his love of diving that steered him to the police, encouraged by friends and dive buddies he served with in the Army Reserve.
One of just 15 police divers in the state, the tight-knit group were typically called in to the toughest of situations; ocean, dam, sinkhole, river, often at a time of tragedy for a family and the community around them.
Someone was lost and it was Glen and his team’s role to find them; rarely a rescue, typically a recovery.
As difficult as it was, the work was rewarding.
“I heard Glen say to someone the other day – to find a missing body was to find peace for the family,” Monique says.
Glen agrees: “You could see what the families were going through – and as the dive supervisor you were speaking to those people – but if we could find that person then as tragic as it was, it was a sense of closure for them.”
In 21 years with the water police, there was never a ‘typical’ day for Glen.
“There were times when I went to work in the morning and came home three days later. You might have been doing some maintenance or paperwork, and next minute you’re flying to the Eyre Peninsula (for a job).”
Yet after two decades the sense of adventure was wearing thin and the nature of Glen’s work, combined with Monique’s own busy career as a dental therapist and hygienist, no longer suited the young family.
Despite growing up in the city, Glen and Monique describe their children as typical country kids.
“They love quiet spaces, open spaces,” Monique adds.
The family always had a country connection. Monique had grown up in Quorn in the Flinders Ranges, and as an adult her sister, Sarahanne, lived with her own young family near Kimba in a beautiful, if slightly tired, heritage farmhouse with a striking view over the countryside.
The McKenzies loved to visit, and Glen had worked the odd harvest with Sarahanne and husband Ben’s family farming business, Shipard Ag.
It was a caravanning trip around Australia in 2021, seeing new things and meeting new friends, that now feels like a catalyst for the young family.
They came to see that life could be different, and while the kids were eager to get home at the end of the trip to catch up with their friends, the novelty wore off “after four or five days back at school”, Monique says.
While teenage girls are often eager to leave a small town behind in favour of the big smoke, it was actually Meg who led the charge for the McKenzies to go west.
“Meg came home from school one day and said, ‘I want to go to the country. I want to go live in Kimba’.”
As it turns out, Meg had hit on something that the whole family was feeling, consciously or otherwise.
While sometimes it’s easy to push nagging thoughts to the side and immerse yourself in the daily busyness of life, Meg’s words came at just the right time to bring everyone’s feelings to the fore.
As luck would have it, at the very same time the role of police officer in Kimba became available.
Glen was quick to share the news with Monique, yet at first she could not quite believe what she was hearing.
“When he walked in and said, there’s a position (at Kimba), I said, ‘what are you talking about?’”
“And he said, ‘the policeman in Kimba, there’s a position in Kimba’.”
She laughs as she recalls her shock. What were the chances?
Surprise quickly turned to excitement, as the family imagined just what it might be like if they took the plunge and decided to go west.
It wasn’t long before the McKenzies were on the move, preparing for life as the family of a ‘small town cop’.
For Monique, there was another idea in the back of her mind.
“I’d always remembered this house, and thought about what I could do with it,” she says, looking around the heritage farmhouse that is now their home.
The idea of renovating the old farmhouse was a huge lure, and Monique and Glen spent their first few months with sleeves rolled up in a full-scale DIY, room-by-room renovation on the home Monique had imagined transforming all those years ago.
Friends and neighbours tuned in to updates on Monique’s social media accounts, waiting for before-and-afters to drop like new episodes on a renovation show as the pair tackled tasks large and small, throwing themselves into a full internal transformation on a tight budget and mostly on their own.
For Monique, the way a home feels is essential to family life.
“I like to make somewhere for everyone to come home and feel good.”
There is no doubt the duo have achieved that goal and the home they’ve created, with that beautiful view, feels like the most welcoming place in the world.
It is fair to say life looks different now. After 12 months on the job as country cop, Glen left the police force and took up the role of full-time farmer when a position came up with Shipard Ag.
And while days on the farm are never dull, the contrast to his former life is welcome.
“You see problems on the farm and they’re not ideal, but they’re not life-altering. It’s something we can work through slowly,” he says.
“Whereas we were making decisions, deploying helicopters and boats to find people adrift at sea, and those things have bigger impacts than most decisions you make.
“It’s hard to get that adrenaline anywhere else, but I’ve moved past that. I don’t miss that now. I crave the quiet life at home.”
