I'm an avid traveller
I am a guest as often as I am a host, and I stay in the sort of places I want The Ridge House measured against.
I notice everything: the coffee, whether the pantry holds anything beyond salt and pepper, good linen, decent soap, enough loo paper that nobody has to take a trip to the supermarket. I look for hosts who share what they actually know, where to eat, what is worth the drive, how to spend a day properly on their patch.
And a house cosy enough that everyone can put their feet up, cook something good, and plan tomorrow over a glass of wine.
Everything at The Ridge House started as a list of things I wished someone else had thought of.
The Ridge House way
Everything I look for as a guest is here because I put it here. Fires laid before you arrive, sourdough and eggs for the first morning, a kitchen you can properly cook in, and a list of where to eat that I keep updating because I keep going out and eating.
And then there are the 50 acres, which is the part I still can't quite believe we get to share.
I'm at home in gumboots
I wasn't born into farming, but I've become the proud custodian of 150 acres of Gippsland pasture and bushland.
We bought Green Hills Farm in 2015 and worked alongside locals who knew considerably more than we did to regenerate the pastures and the bush breaks, plant an orchard, and put in a kitchen garden.
Today it is a working farm producing grass-fed Black Angus, garlic, honey from our hives, and whatever the fruit trees and vegetable beds are giving us that month.
None of it was easy. I check the weather more often than my email now, and I actually love that.
We bought The Ridge House in 2017 and restored it the same way.
The Ridge House way
Two walking trails through tall ash gums and fern gullies, both of them yours alone for the length of your stay.
The Tramway Track follows the original 1880s logging tramway, an easy kilometre out to the neighbour's fence. Tall Timbers is the one that will make you feel it. Loggers Lookout is off the back deck, down a set of stairs, and it faces Mount Baw Baw.
Restoring The Ridge House restored us. Let it do the same for you.
I'm a lifelong food lover
Scratch me and you'll find a flour-encrusted baker and an insatiably curious cook.
Marketing is my career, but the part of the week I look forward to is the hunt: what's ripe in the garden, what's at the farmers market, what cheese our neighbour is making from her house cow's milk. I plan whole days around a meal and I have never once regretted it.
I read cookbooks the way other people read novels, which is why there are so many of them on the shelf here.
It's why the kitchen is equipped the way it is, and why I keep a running list of where to eat in Gippsland for anyone who asks.
The Ridge House way
Breakfast is waiting when you arrive. Sourdough, eggs, Gippsland Jersey milk and butter, local jam, and honey from our hives next door. Enough to start the first morning properly, which I think matters more than anything else you'll eat that day.
Then there's my Gippsland guide. In cahoots with my family and friends I have done extensive research, and every recommendation on it is something I have gone back for.
I'm a stationery tragic
An unabashed hoarder of office supplies, whimsical or workwomanlike, I'm not fussy.
A stylishly ordered desk soothes something in me, a witty greeting card can make my whole morning, and I am delighted by small surprises of every kind: practical, decorative, and (see above) edible.
This is not entirely irrelevant to your stay. It's why there's a jar of working pens, notepads for scribbling Scrabble scores on, and lovely bound tabletop books to read by the fire.
The Ridge House way
We plan to charm and soothe you, and the small things do most of the work.
A bowl of citrus picked that morning. Hot chocolate waiting to happen, just add milk and marshmallows. A match-ready fire and a stack of bone-dry logs, because there is nothing worse than arriving cold to a basket of green wood.
Most of what you'll notice here is small. That's deliberate.
GUEST REVIEWS
"Perfect Gippsland accommodation. You can feel that the place is very thought-through."
- Jimmy, August 2026
"The Ridge House is incredibly well thought out, down to matching ware, water jars and glasses in all rooms."
- Adele, June 2024
"What sets this place apart is the soul and effort that Kristy pours into ensuring your stay is an excellent one, like booking us a table for lunch at a fab local restaurant."
- Ivy, July 2021