We arrived in Murwillumbah during a torrential downpour. It felt to me like the middle of nowhere, but we’d come for Galah’s regional-photography award celebration at the start of a family visit. My son Alex lives on the border of New South Wales and Queensland with his wife, Katie, and three small children. Galah, the event’s sponsor, is a gorgeous high-end publication, more book than magazine, which comes out three times yearly with a focus on regional Australia. It was founded by Katie’s sister Annabelle Hickson. More about the magazine later.

This celebration had serious hype. The prize was a whopping $25,000, an award that makes quite a statement. Galah is passionate about regional Australia. In a charming art-deco theater, recently renovated as an art space, upward of 250 guests assembled. There was live music, and craft cocktails flowed. The exhibit featured 51 photographs from Cunnamulla to Alice Springs to Byron Bay.

One of my favorites showed a strange, lank man standing in a river, which reflects the overgrowth along its banks. Another captured a chaotic flurry of birds flying in all directions, individuated, like those in an M.C. Escher drawing. The subject of Adam Ferguson’s prize-winning shot was a man and young woman on horseback in the sun. They wear cowboy hats, and their steady gazes hint at another reality.

After this fabulous event and a few family beach days, we took the long drive to Dumaresq Valley, to the pecan farm owned by Annabelle (we call her Annie) and her husband, Ed. Alex, Katie, and our grandchildren also live here, in what they call the top house. It sits on a hillside with pine-covered hills behind it.

Two-hundred hectares of pecan trees spread through the valley below us. Annie and Ed’s place is in the valley. Ed has clearcut wide swaths behind both houses, and at some stage may install solar panels. On the horizon, more hills stand against an enormous sky. In other words, what looks to the casual observer like the absolute middle of nowhere throbs with creative enterprise and family life.

Walking from the top house to Annie and Ed’s place takes about 15 minutes. Yellow grasses stretch downhill, dotted with olive and cactus. There are kangaroos and wallabies, as well as herds of wild goats.

Our grandchildren attend preschool in the nearest town, 45 minutes away. Alex meets them when they return by school bus. His SUV creeps up the winding dirt road to the top house, their dog Jay — a tiny speck until he’s suddenly panting there beside me — racing ahead. This is a life I never imagined.

It’s also special for the sisters to be able to live close together. Alex and Katie moved here from Sydney last year, and with three little live-wire children, there’s not much downtime. Katie has a teaching job in the opposite direction from the preschool, and listening to podcasts on the long drive to work is an opportunity for her to decompress. Meanwhile, Alex works remotely as a fire-safety engineer.

Kookaburras chatter in the treetops, and when the much-anticipated rains come, it’s a serious topic of conversation. At dusk, the grass takes on a rich gold color, and the sky is tinged purple in the pristine light.

“How long is the drive from Tenterfield to the house?” Walter texted me the following week. He’s a lifelong friend and an actor who happened to be performing in Australia while I was there. It was a four-hour drive from the Gold Coast, but he hadn’t seen Alex and Katie in years.

“About an hour,” I texted back, “straight towards Bonshaw with nothing much on either side but fields. Watch the road,” I cautioned. “Kangaroos may hop out any moment.” In drought, they frequent the roadside, seeking lusher vegetation.

Forty minutes later, Walter texted again. “Seven dead kangaroos so far.”

You see? I wasn’t kidding.

When Walter arrived, my husband, Ben, and I were waiting at the roadside in case he missed the turn. “Amazing!” Walter said, winding down his car window. He lives in England, and we in Northern Virginia. “Look where we are!”

Annie prepared an al-fresco dinner with Ottolenghi-inspired salads, roast beef, and wine. I persuaded Walter to sing a Noel Coward song he’d recently performed, “There Are Bad Times Just Around the Corner.” Laughter and conversation filled the evening, interrupted only by lively children. It may be remote, I thought, but what a full-on life!

And that’s the message behind so many stories published in Galah. In the latest issue, there’s a piece about a couple who moved from Sydney to a tiny house in Bega Valley made of repurposed and recycled materials. Their home bursts with imagination and color: “A way of life that requires a deep connection to the season, the weather, and the rising and setting of the sun.”

Another piece, adapted from a collection of essays by Brisbane architects Stuart

Vokes and Aaron Peters, extols the surprising beauty of inconvenience in design. Another highlights Canberra, viewed by many as in between more significant destinations. But to the writers, it’s home. And there are more such stories, as well as recipes, book reviews, and photographs.

I’m staggered by what Annie has achieved in just three years publishing Galah: She’s garnered awards, a growing subscription base, and has recently hired an editor who works remotely from Tasmania, as well as a new general manager. Although 85 percent of Australians live along the coast around cities, she’s passionate about demonstrating just how much nuance and beauty there is to life out here.

Of course, you won’t find cafes, bookstores, or yoga studios nearby. Nor the diversity of the people who enrich my daily life back home. But fly-over country it certainly isn’t. There’s a lot we’ve got wrong about rural life, and it’s worth considering what we city folks give up in the name of convenience and proximity.

Amanda Holmes Duffy is a columnist and poetry editor for the Independent and the voice of “Read Me a Poem,” a podcast of the American Scholar.

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