Amanda Ferrari took a leap of faith when she enrolled in ag college

The photographer and I are running late. The mobile reception is bad on the road from Dubbo to Trangie, New South Wales, but Amanda Ferrari is completely unfazed by the regular, and changing, updates on our ETA.

Finally, we turn off the Mitchell Highway just before we reach Trangie and drive across a bridge to Karuna Bank, Amanda’s home perched high on the edge of the Macquarie River. I read a text pinging in on my mobile: ‘Just come across the deck to the door, walk through and holler.’

It’s been quite a journey, but nothing compared to the one taken by the woman who is finally in front of me. “How did a girl from Sydney’s Eastern Suburbs end up here?” asks the 58-year-old, guessing what my first question will be as she pours me a cold drink in the large open-plan kitchen.

“I’ve always had a hankering for the land. We had boarders at my school, so I was invited to country parties and I just loved it,” she says. “I can’t really explain it. I was a city girl literally off the beach at Bondi, then I got out into the country and I had the strongest, most urgent sense of belonging that’s unexplainable.”

A couple of years after leaving school, she says, “I put my money where my mouth was and went off to ag college in Orange. It was an experience that set me up for life.”

The city girl’s decision to enrol at an agricultural college in a country town was a very brave — and unusual — one at the time. “One hundred per cent it was,” she recalls as we sit at a timber dining table overlooked by a magnificent work by the Aboriginal artist Barbara Weir, bought 20 years ago in Alice Springs. “I had no country background at all, no grandparents on the land, nothing. But I loved it so I decided to move. And 10 years down the track, I was marrying a cropping farmer.”

This dynamic woman had already packed a lot into her life by the time she met Ross Ferrari at Trangie’s Imperial Hotel (‘The Impy’ to locals). “Three mad farmers bought the pub a couple of years ago, and one of them is my husband,” she says, rolling her eyes. “But it has been fun.”

The Ferrari family are well known in the district; Ross’s dad Harry, who died last year, is recalled fondly by many. It’s clearly a close community and one Amanda loves being part of.

A young mum recently interviewed by Graziher attributed her success to the town’s great childcare service. It turns out that Amanda was a driving force behind the establishment of Tots on Temoin, one of the first long daycare centres in rural New South Wales. She was also the founding president of the Macquarie Matrons, which raised approximately $900,000 for rural causes.

“When you come to a new community, it can be very difficult for young women. You’re thrown into the isolation of childbirth and child rearing on your own, living out of town. It’s that age-old story and it doesn’t change,” she says.

Amanda speaks from experience. Amy and Annabel, her twin daughters, were born at the busiest time of the year — harvest. Now 28, they were followed by Oliver, who has just turned 23. (His mother jokingly refers to him as ‘Baby Jesus’ as “He can do no wrong in my eyes”.)

The face of a much younger Oliver appears on the marketing materials for Boarding Schools Expo Australia, the organisation Amanda owns and oversees as director.

Years ago, she and Ross spent many hours at the dining table, carefully considering where their children would go to school. “I always knew it was highly likely my kids would go to boarding school, but I’d never really confronted it,” she says. “I thought it would be easy, but what was I thinking? It just didn’t occur to me that these little people wouldn’t be at home anymore. People don’t talk about that and that’s why I love helping people now.”

Amanda has seen big changes in the boarding school world. “Our ag businesses are growing, our mining sector is growing and our renewable energy sector is growing. We are seeing more first-generation boarders than ever before,” she says.

What words of wisdom does she have for these newcomers? “Don’t give all the power to your children. Don’t let them choose the school on their own. You want them to have a say, but make it a collective decision with all the family.”

In a recent interview for Dubbo’s Daily Liberal, Amanda was asked about the best advice she has been given. Her reply? “A Buddhist nun once said, ‘Worrying is like praying for something you don’t want to happen.’”

Wise, witty and very funny — I just wish that I could put in everything we spoke about during our afternoon together in Trangie — one thing is certain: Amanda Ferrari is someone you want on your team.

This story appears in the 2025 Graziher x Boarding Schools Expo Australia Boarding Schools Guide, published in Issue 44. Subscribe to Graziher and you’ll never miss an issue of your favourite magazine.