Farm stay hopes tourists will return to Raglan hills following bushfire

The couple lost more than 6 kilometres of fencing, half their vineyard, vegetable gardens and hundreds of native trees, in damage estimated to cost several thousand dollars.

The farm's sheep had been sold six months ago so no livestock were lost during the bushfire.

"We just don't know where to start," said Ms Watson.

"Every time you go back, it kind of looks worse.

"It really gets on top of you."

The couple quickly evacuated their home on Thursday, February 22, after they saw smoke billowing over the hill behind their property.

"We said if it pops over that mountain, we get in the car and go," Ms Watson said.

"That's always been our plan."

Mr Watson said just as they were ready to go, the couple were told to evacuate.

"We took off pretty much straight away," he said.

"We didn't take that much, probably just our passports."

They travelled to Beaufort for a few hours on Thursday evening but after the fires grew closer to the town, they were evacuated to Ballarat that night.

They were not able to return to their home and farm stays until Sunday and evacuated again ahead of last Wednesday's weather warnings.

"It was sort of overwhelming really," Mr Watson said.

"On Saturday morning, we didn't know if our house was still standing."

Ms Watson described the "major impact" the bushfire had on their farm stay business.

"We've lost quite a few bookings and it's just unknown how many people are going to want to come and how many won't come because of the fires," she said.

"It certainly doesn't look like it used to and you won't be able to get up into the mountains for a long time because of the trees."

Mr Watson said a large number of the native and rare trees he had planted were destroyed.

"I'd started on some tree plantings and we'd been growing all our own seedlings but they're all gone now," he said.

"How are we going to knock down all these dangerous dead trees?," Ms Watson asked.

"That's going to be massive.

"It's just devastated them and they're all hollow up the middle, the really big ones."

Wildlife was another part of the Watson's eco-lodge business.

Visitors enjoyed seeing the native animals but many were lost during the bushfire.

"There were dead deer hanging around, kangaroos, wallabies," Mr Watson said.

"Sunday night, there was a little joey trying to get through the window.

"You can see that they're really frightened and confused.

"They've been sitting in our vineyard, under the vines.

"There's nowhere for them to go really."

However, not all at the Glut Farm was lost in last week's fire event.

Ms Watson explained how they had saturated the gardens and left the sprinklers on before they evacuated.

"The vegetable garden, most of that was saved but it just started to come into the back of the garden area," she said.

In a move that proved fortunate for the Watsons, a fire truck and County Fire Authority (CFA) officers got stuck at their home and ended up having to use the couple's generator.

Ms Watson said the CFA put out spot fires around the property and kept the fire at bay.

They even let out the farm's flock of chickens and allowed them to escape the encroaching flames.

The Watsons opened their Glut Farm the weekend Australia was locked down due to Covid-19 in 2020.

They said this latest challenge, and hit to their income, would be difficult to overcome.

While they accessed the real cost and damage of the bushfire, they called for support for all those in their community who have been affected.