When Marie Nouata's daughters Sophie, 4, and Emma, 2, burst into tears because they were too frightened to run through the long grass that once swayed through these paddocks, she knew that this was exactly where her family needed to put down new roots.
"That was the defining moment for me. I thought 'I can't have this!' I knew then that this was the right thing to do because I wanted my children to have the childhood that I had,' she explains. "We had a backyard back in Scotland where we were still living then. Now the girls don't even wear shoes to school, they're real barefoot Kiwi kids."
Theirs has been a transition unlike any other. Sophie and Emma, now 9 and 7, live here with their younger sister Olivia, 4, their 12-year-old cousin Devon and their respective parents, Marie and Mark Nouata and Devon's parents Sharon and Hamish Marr. Marie and Sharon are identical twins, aged 34, and they've lived together before, in Glasgow and back here in Epsom while this place was being built. Now this modern, super-sized family is living its dream overlooking Muriwai and Bethells beaches, in a home that hugs the environment planted to complement the fauna of neighbouring Goldie Bush.
These girls all know where their eggs, meat and vegetables come from and why all chores, theirs included, are on a spreadsheet that anyone rarely has to refer to. They understand why what Marie calls "good honest communication" ensures the smooth running of a household where three adults make the 40-minute commute into Auckland city's corporate world and where they all eat dinner together around their eight-seater kitchen bar.
