"We're entering a new phase of our lives"

For many, abandoning the city for a rural retreat became a happy by-product of lockdowns. But this beautiful sheep station owned by veteran newsreader Mark Ferguson and his wife, Jayne, is far from a hobby. We talk to the couple about their changing family dynamic and rekindling childhood passions.

-  RACHEL SHARP

Six-year-old Freddy the giant chocolate Labrador is certainly no farm dog – despite being born on a country property. In fact, he appears mortified to find himself three hours south-west of his comfortable urban digs in Paddington, Sydney, with nothing but rolling hills and the occasional distant sheep to stare at. Not that he’d see much if he left his spot in front of the fireplace to explore outside this pretty renovated former shearer’s cottage. Even at 9am, there’s a blanket of misty white fog, or maybe stubborn low cloud, blocking any view of the stunning rural vista. So Freddy does as any self-respecting pet would do – he focuses on The Weekly’s crew, who have affectionate hands and a propensity to drop morsels of morning tea pastry.

“He’s a city dog,” concedes the familiar baritone voice of his owner, veteran television journalist and newsreader Mark Ferguson. He and his media executive wife of 27 years, Jayne, have owned this beautiful 750-hectare piece of rustic heaven, Hazeldean, in the Southern Tablelands of New South Wales since 2015. Previously owned by five generations of the same Irish immigrant family, it features a large woolshed, sheep yards, machinery sheds, ramshackle workers’ cottages, and a four-bedroom homestead built in the late 1800s that the Fergusons modernised four years ago.