Only a thin pane of floor-to-ceiling glass stands between us and the lush rainforest outside.

“We planted all of this,” Cathy Tomkins, Amaroo Bangalow’s owner, tells us, motioning toward the sea of green. “Those trees were just tubes. We weren’t sure they’d take – and look at them now.”

Stories like this, my daughter and I soon learn, make up the 81-plus-hectare property. As Tomkins takes us outside, she sweeps her arm across the horizon.

“Pretty much everything you can see is ours,” she says with a smile.

We follow her gaze across rolling hills, thousands of native plants and trees and cows grazing the fields. She walks us down the footpath, pointing out the chickens.

“The chooks will let you pat them,” Tomkins says. “They lie down like puppies.”

My little girl’s eyes widen with delight, and it’s confirmed: coming here for our girls’ trip was the right choice. And for me, after growing up barefoot in the countryside of New York right up the road from my grandparents’ dairy farm in a small two-stoplight town called Hancock, it felt like a homecoming.

Breathing room

But it wasn’t just nostalgia drawing me here; it was necessity. Between the endless deadlines, marathon meetings and that perpetually growing to-do list, the invite landed in my inbox like a lifeline. And the idea of doing absolutely nothing for a few days felt wonderfully rebellious. At Amaroo Bangalow, they seem to understand that sometimes the most productive thing you can do is stop producing altogether.

Recently opened for its first full season in 2025, Amaroo isn’t your typical boutique luxury stay. Set on 93 hectares of working farmland, native forest and regenerated landscape just minutes from the charming township of Bangalow, the property is designed for total immersion.

Amaroo is owned and run by a local family who, after years of living on the property, transformed it from a dairy farm into what it is today – a private sanctuary of architecturally designed pavilions and cabins embraced by Mother Nature. But it’s not luxury for luxury’s sake.

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The owners partnered with Bangalow Koalas to plant more than 45,000 native trees and rebuild habitat across the estate. The retreat has become a regeneration project itself; a living, breathing investment in sustainability. And while we didn’t see any koalas on our visit, we delighted in spotting a kangaroo by the cabins just before sunset and a picture-perfect, yellow-tailed black cockatoo playing in the native bush outside our window.

Architecture that exhales

What strikes you immediately about Amaroo’s buildings is how effortlessly they belong. Created in collaboration with two of Australia’s most respected firms, Shaun Lockyer Architects and DFJ, the genius behind The Farm at Byron, Amaroo blends seamlessly into the landscape.

Four private cabins, a spacious loft – where we stayed – and a shared central pavilion rest upon the property. The interiors are organic and calming; think warm wood, polished concrete, buttery linens, natural textures and expansive windows framing views of rainforest, native gardens, rolling hills and sky.

Here, every booking includes exclusive access to the entire estate. So whether you’re a group of two like us or a party of 14, the estate is all yours – no competition for space. It’s a level of privacy that is rarely found these days.

You’ll wake to the ‘whip choo choo’ of local birds and the sun gently peeking through the curtains – not a blaring alarm. Your coffee? It will be savored, not rushed, on the deck while you’re wrapped in a deep, emerald-hued waffle robe.

And your neighbors? Just the cows and a few chickens. Maybe a kangaroo. And possibly a baby calf who’s wandered beyond the fence, as one did during our stay.

Moments that matter

What made Amaroo most memorable, though, wasn’t about what we did, but what we didn’t have to do. There was no itinerary. No scheduled activities. Just space to roam freely, a heated plunge pool, a wood-burning fireplace I proudly mastered over two nights and the time to notice the kind of details that never surface when you’re staring at a screen.

My daughter and I explored barefoot most of the time. We played Balderdash by the fire, read books and took in the magic of a dazzling star-filled sky. We swam in the rain and even debated if cows make good conversationalists – they don’t, but they do listen intently. And at some point, the tightness I’d been holding in my shoulders let go.

On our last day, we sat on the hilltop, and I found myself reflecting as I finally felt safe enough to let go and just be. My parents, both gone now, spent their lives grounded in land and hard work. This stay reminded me of that and of what it means to build something that lasts. Then, perfectly on cue, a rainbow arced across the sky as if to see us off.

Heading back inside to pack up our things and zip up our bags, we moved slowly. Reluctantly. Tears filled her eyes and then mine. There was no urgency to leave, just the quiet ache of knowing we had to. But as we set off back to reality, my daughter gave me the biggest hug, saying, “That was the best trip ever.”

And it wasn’t because we did the most, but because we finally let go of always having to do it all. Amaroo reminded me that luxury isn’t always found in more – more speed, more productivity, more noise – but in space, in slowness and in simplicity. In less.

That, I think, is what will bring us back.