Meet the Croker family of Crookwell

Here, Elise gives us an insight into life as a nurse, mother of four and her latest venture — renovating and running two properties, Eldorado Cottage and Mister Munro, as AirBnBs.

“I met Craig at a local play in Crookwell when I was 21. I can’t remember now what the play was but it was something that was put on once a year by CADS, the Crookwell Amateur Drama Society. I went to school with Craig’s sister Liana — she was the year above me — and there were a few of their cousins in the play. After the play, we all went to the pub and Liana introduced us. Craig was in a corner with a mate, just chatting quietly. The next morning, I said to a friend: ‘Liana’s boyfriend seemed really nice.’ And my friend started laughing and said, ‘No, that’s not her boyfriend, that’s her brother.’

WATCH: A day in the life of the Crocker family. Article continues below. 

“A couple of weeks later, the Cowra Races were on, and my friend said, ‘Craig, will definitely be at the races.’ So I took myself off to the races and Craig happened to be there and that was it. I’d just come back from Sydney and I was home to save money as my plan was to go travelling and also to see my great grandmother who was turning one hundred. She lived in Coventry [UK], so my grandfather (who was her son) and my mum, my aunt and my uncle, all flew there to spend her 100th birthday with her. It was a wonderful experience. My grandfather was a ‘10-pound Pom’ and he left Coventry after World War II and all the bombing. He was only 16 years old when he got off the boat and went straight to Longreach to work as a jackaroo.

“All mum’s cousins were at the party. For me, I had this new-found family there that I had never met before and it was a once-in-a-lifetime experience that I knew I had to do. Craig and I had probably only known each for six months or even less at that stage so I said to him, ‘If we’re still thinking about each other, I’ll come and find you.’

“I travelled around, had a great time, but after a few months I realised I missed Craig so I came back. Being a nurse, I can work anywhere, so we lived in Armidale, New South Wales, where Craig was working before he got a job in Rockhampton. We had a great time there and made so many friends.

We got married in June 2008 and moved back here. We bought part of Craig’s family farm and Bridie was born a year later.

“I grew up on a farm. I’m one of four children. We had horses, dogs and a couple of stray cats that you would feed out the back door. You could just run down the paddock and make a fort. You could pretend to be in some make-believe world. You had the room to grow and use your imagination and be creative. The freedom of being in touch with nature, that’s what I loved about growing up on a farm. Obviously, growing up on a farm really instills hard-working values as well: it’s not all just skipping in green grass. There’s livestock, and you’ve got dead stock; work dogs get run over and other things like that. I do think it is makes you quite resilient and gives you that ability to be more adaptable. It’s probably not that talked about, but growing up on a farm is creative in a sense because you don’t have as much outside contact. You can’t just duck down the street on your bike or go to the movies like town kids. You have to be creative with your siblings and make your own fun. And growing up with your siblings teaches you conflict resolution and problem solving. Essentially, our children are growing up the same way that Craig and I did. They get out and work hard. They will go and move stock. They will go down and help Craig fix a fence and pull a calf. So they have the creative freedom and the work ethic as well as a connection with their cousins because Craig’s brother also lives on the farm. He has three children and our kids are roughly the same age. There is something so special about cousins. They are as close as siblings yet they don’t fight like siblings. It is so great having them there. The kids have the same interests. It makes farm work fun as well as productive and I really treasure that relationship for the children to have their cousins around. You always have a lifelong friend in a sibling, but you also have it in a cousin.