Success means… Doing something worthwhile with whatever abilities you’ve been given, and benefiting other people as well as yourself in the process.

Helen Taylor pioneered farm tourism in the Tweed Valley when she established ‘Beach Farm’ as the hub for a network of farmstays on the New South Wales Far North Coast near the Queensland Gold Coast. ‘Homestay’ has always proved popular in cities as an opportunity for foreign students to learn English. Helen saw the potential to marry this educational tourism with agriculture for a truly unique holiday and learning experience. Beach Farm has developed into a family agritourism enterprise, with Helen’s daughter Robyn now managing the tourism business, and son-in-law Jim managing the farm animals and orchard. At 70 years of age Helen has not lost any of her vitality. She and her husband Ross are officially ‘retired’ but still help in every way they can, to ensure that visitors experience Australian country hospitality.

What gave you the motivation/inspiration to follow your dream?

I had been nursing for 10 years and felt that I needed a change. My husband Ross was a Chief Purser at sea so I travelled for a while with him as a ‘company wife’. We visited many places and I was quite shocked by the huge Asian cities.

Ross showed me a magazine article about how Asians were interested in rural experiences to escape their ‘concrete pigeon holes’. As we have 20 acres of subtropical orchard, only 15 minutes from the Gold Coast International Airport, he suggested I try developing a farmstay business using our farm as a base.

At what point did you realise that your dream was actually possible and what was it that made you think you could really do it?

Older relatives had died and our two sons and two daughters had grown up and left home. We had a big family home which had a lot of space to take in guests.

I checked with the local council and we were zoned OK to become a Rural Tourist Facility and take backpackers. So that was the beginning, when we knew the idea had potential.

My next step was to persuade a tourism agent to bring a group of students from an agricultural high school in Japan to stay at local farms. This was a huge success. They went home and told their friends they had been to, and stayed in, the Australian outback! This trial led to more student groups coming to have an Australian country experience. We usually had the teachers and interpreters stay with us at Beach Farm and used a network of local farms to accommodate the others.

The groups started with 10–20 students and have grown to over 200. This has provided opportunities for farming families throughout the region to gain extra income by periodically providing a bedroom for one or two overseas students.

How did your childhood influence you in later life?

We had a warm loving family life of three generations living together and we didn’t get an electricity supply until I was 21 years old. My mother was a creative person. She wrote the social columns in our local newspaper and acted in the local Amateur Dramatic Society plays. My father taught me the importance of buying land in a go-ahead area.

Who are your role models?

• Spiritually — Mother Teresa.

• Physically — the lady dietician who fed the guys who won the America’s Cup.

• In Business — men and women who are creative in business, from Rupert Murdoch down.

What does success mean to you?

Doing something worthwhile with whatever abilities you’ve been given, and benefiting other people as well as yourself in the process.

What has been one of the biggest barriers you have had to face, what happened, and how did you overcome it?

Getting development capital has been my biggest barrier. Because Ross was at retiring age and we’d paid off our home, our land, and all our children’s education expenses, I did not want the burden of another mortgage. We couldn’t subdivide our land as we only had 20 acres.

An ancient eyesore, a substation, was positioned at the bottom of our farm, and fortunately the energy company needed to build a bigger substation to cope with the population boom along the coast. I asked them to completely screen and landscape the substation to keep the environment attractive for our tourists and they agreed. They bought some land to facilitate this, which helped with funding.

The second idea I had was to ask for a government grant. The first time I applied, they liked my ideas but the financials weren’t strong enough. The second time, I was too shy to ask for help or support and my application was refused because I didn’t have enough community support. On my third attempt I was determined to succeed — I asked local farmers, politicians and university people to support me, and they did! It was a win-win situation, as everyone benefited positively from this.

Where do you see yourself in 10 years time?

I hope to be healthy and still able to contribute in some way, God willing. I have been blessed with good genes. My mother is 96 years old and still very alert and interested in all the family details.

My vision for the future is to continue to help to build agricultural and educational tourism in the Tweed Valley.

What would you like to say to other women who may be just starting out on a ‘daring to dream’ journey?

You don’t have to have the brains of a ‘rocket scientist’. Take a hard look at yourself and your experiences. Try to decide what you think you can do best and have a go. Don’t be afraid to ask for help and support from others.