When Alison Jones took a gamble on a reality TV show more than a decade ago, she never imagined it would end up transforming her life and the small rural town she'd eventually call home.
But this gamble eventually landed Alison in the northern New South Wales town of Walcha, with three young children to Charlie — the man she met on The Farmer Wants a Wife.
Alison admits she got "the biggest shock" when she made the move from inner-city Sydney to Walcha, a community of 3,000 atop the Great Dividing Range. "We've been going out for 13 years now and we have three kids and a couple of farms. And yeah, it's very busy," she says.Alison's waiting list for patients is six weeks long and the acute doctor shortage in the region means people are travelling long distances just to see her and her two colleagues.
Working as a GP, Alison had been "heavily relying" on her partner's family to help look after their young sons and was fortunate that her work helped pay for a nanny, costing up to $700 a week.
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