A chance meeting led to Lucy Samuels and Lucy Taylor creating a podcast about rural heroes

Lucy Samuels: I met Lucy on a car trip. We knew each other through mutual friends and we were going to a party in Gloucester [on the lower mid-north coast of NSW]. Lucy had just moved back to Coonamble [in north-west NSW] from the city, and she messaged me saying, “Can I jump in the car with you and head to Catherine’s party?” It was during that six-hour trip that we started talking about our passion for rural communities and people. She knocked on my door the next day. Ideas are ideas and you can always talk about things, but Lucy was really the one who made it happen by rocking up and knocking on my door.

When I worked as a news reporter for WIN TV and Prime7 in the Central West, I loved travelling around with the cameraman, talking to real people. But I hated the bad news stories — the car crashes, the crime. I wanted to get out of that and spend time in these towns and voice these stories that were never heard.

It’s really nice having somebody who thinks the same way as you. Lucy and I are both very hard-working people, and we both like adventure. Lucy is very trusting of me wanting to fly her everywhere! We’ve been to heaps of places [to interview people for the podcast] — White Cliffs, Bourke and Brewarrina.
Lucy’s always got a smile on her face; she’s a very positive person. And since knowing her, I’ve learnt that she is so extremely talented. She is an incredibly beautiful writer, though she can be really hard on herself. I think I’m a little bit more logical and serious, but she inspires me to think in a different way. She’s taught me to let go a little bit.

We’re both stubborn, but somehow it works. Sometimes, someone has to let go in order for an idea to move forward. We can have different ideas on a story, and Lucy is usually always right, which sucks!
There’s definitely times when we’re in the studio and you realise, “OK, we need to go home now, we’re getting so sick of each other,” but it is always in a way that you know that you just need an afternoon apart. She’s like a sister.

Lucy Taylor: When COVID hit I lost my job as a junior features writer at Marie Claire and started contract farming, so I wanted to do something creative. Lucy was in a bit of a slump, too. We got to talking in the car and I thought, “Why don’t we create something cool? Let’s go for it!” Lucy thought it was a bit of a pipe dream, but I was ready from the get-go.

We started off as this creative partnership, but Lucy has turned into one of my best friends. She’s the most genuine, kind-hearted soul. We can talk about anything. Like every friendship, there’s always struggles. We have creative differences, but they’re resolved within a matter of hours. We’re quite similar, in that we’re both very headstrong. And we both love getting out and having a chat.
I grew up on a property in Coonamble. I think rural people know what hard work is and what it’s about, and I saw that within the polo world as well. That’s been a big thing for me, and also a bad thing, because I won’t stop until I’ve got something done. But, having a country upbringing has shaped Lucy and me, the way that we can talk to rural people and have a connection with them. They’re going to open up, because they know we’ve been through similar experiences. We know what it’s like to be in the middle of nowhere and trying to live off that.

Lucy is a perfectionist and she doesn’t back herself enough — she can put words together brilliantly, and she has the perfect persona to really dig into a story. I go off on a tangent, but she’s straight to the point. She also shines a light on my creative ideas, that they’re worth something, a lot. She wants me to tap into that.

I remember when Lucy and I jumped in the plane together for the first time. We hadn’t flown solo together before and I could tell she was a little bit panicked, but I had full trust in her. In the first hour, we hadn’t said a whole lot, and I just looked over and I was like, “You got this”. And she said, “We’ve got this”. It was a beautiful moment, where we started laughing and almost crying, ’cause we were like, “We’re actually going to do this. We’re doing something great.”

Listen to their podcast ExtraOrdinary Outback Stories.

To hear more extraordinary stories about women living in rural and regional Australia, listen to our podcast Life on the Land on Apple podcasts, Spotify, and all major podcast platforms.