A POCKET OF PARADISE

No matter how far and wide the Simoneau family travels, there will always be a pocket of paradise in Queensland they call home.

- KIRSTY MCKENZIE

By their own reckoning, if Tamara Simoneau and her husband, Marc, had simply stayed in the one place, they could have afforded to be driving Lamborghinis. Instead, they've lived a peripatetic life, dividing their time between Marc's home country of Canada and Tamara's state of origin, Queensland. These days, the family lives in Sydney, where Tamara is an executive producer for Channel 10 and Marc works as an IT consultant. But no matter how far they roam, they always return to their beautiful bolthole in the lush hills of Buderim on Queensland's Sunshine Coast hinterland.

Tamara grew up between Brisbane and Caloundra, the second of four children of school-teacher parents. Her mother's family came from the land in central Queensland, so she counts herself lucky to have balanced her urban upbringing with holidays on a cattle property in the Arcadia Valley, where she learned to ride horses, drive a car and enjoy all the freedoms a bush upbringing allows. Inspired by award-winning television presenter Jana Wendt, Tamara says she never considered any career other than journalism and went straight from school to a business and media degree at Queensland University of Technology.

"As soon as I could get my foot in the door, I started work experience at Channel Seven between classes," she recalls. "I ran errands, made the tea, helped out wherever I could. Gradually, I started reporting and when they started calling me to fill in for reporters on sick leave, I was finally paid for my efforts."