Rachel ward - SAVING THE PLANET FOR MY GRANDKIDS!

Hollywood is a distant memory for the actress-turned-farmer

- Phillip Koch

The legendary star of The Thorn Birds was surprised at just how instantly she fell in love with her little blond grandson who opened her eyes all over again to the beauty and joy of life on the Aussie land.

"I just felt he was looking at the world with such wonder and innocence," says the 65-year-old actress. "It's taken me by surprise by how devoted you become as a grandmother. You hear it, of course, but until you experience it, you don't really realise how much these little things are going to get under your skin. The paradox was the more I fell in love with my grandchildren, the more I worried about the world that they were inheriting."

CREATING CHANGE

That worry about climate change and the resulting surge in bushfires and floods, on top of an awakening about how to regenerate her farm without chemicals and poisons, drove Rachel to turn her life upside down.

"Mine was highlighted by the birth of my grandson... I felt like I had this terrible secret which was going to be revealed to him at some point," she says of the personal crisis and depression she felt at the state of the world.

With her fears consuming her, Rachel teamed up with her neighbour and decided to throw out traditional farming methods at her 300-hectare cattle farm in the Nambucca Valley and try regenerative farming to bring her land alive again.