Given the choice, Matilda Brown would choose to listen to the Moana soundtrack over the Frozen one.
But on a recent road trip to the picturesque, rural New South Wales town of Wollombi, she and her husband, Scott Gooding, didn’t have a choice – their two children wanted to listen to both.
“One of the best things about being a mum is that you get to go and see the Disney films,” Brown says.
Brown and Gooding aren’t just husband and wife. In 2021, they launched the first iteration of The Good Farm Shop.
“Neither of us had any idea about business,” Brown says.
It began as a small cow share, sourcing beef from regenerative farms across NSW, including Brown’s family farm.
“Regenerative farming is all about working with nature and animals to improve soil health,” Brown says.
Now, they describe the business as “a ready-meals company with a difference”.
Brown and Gooding, along with the seven staff that they employ, largely operate from the kitchen where the business’s ready meals are produced. But over the years, they’ve also spent a lot of time on the road, meeting suppliers.
“We got really into road trips because of the business,” Brown says.
On their recent weekend away to Wollombi, Brown and Gooding drove a Mitsubishi Outlander Plug-In Hybrid EV, which Brown says was a “level up” from the family’s usual cars.
She’s quick to point out some of her favourite features: the wireless charging, a digital display that tells the driver when they’re speeding and the back massager in the seats.
“I only discovered it on the way home,” she laments.
With Brown having spent so much time on the road, we asked her to share her ingredients for a perfect family road trip.
Fun for the whole family
“As a mum, my number one thing is my kids having a good time,” Brown says. “Seeing them play, laugh and enjoy themselves – there’s nothing better than that.”
Alongside running their business, she and Gooding are parents to a five-year-old and a three-year-old.
“We’re not at a point in our lives where we can relax,” she says.
On an ideal weekend away the family tries to do “little things throughout the day” that, for the children, are as much fun as they are exhausting. Their first full day in Wollombi included brunch in a nearby cafe, Enzo, browsing in local shops, such as the boutique Fetch Store, an outing to the Hunter Valley Wildlife Park, and a dip in their Airbnb’s spa.
It’s there, looking out to the rolling countryside, away from the “crowded” city, that Brown herself feels at peace.
“I like hearing the birds and the animals,” she says. “Being in wilderness just resets your nervous system, I think.”
Good feeds all round
Considering the raison d’etre of The Good Farm Shop, it comes as no surprise when Brown mentions food as one of her key ingredients for a great road trip.
“Scott just can’t eat crap food, and I’m the beneficiary of that,” she says.
Brown describes her husband as a “foodie” – the type of foodie who, no matter where they find themselves for the weekend, will always know where “there’s a really good restaurant” nearby.
“If we’re going away for two nights, we’ll eat out somewhere one night, and then we’ll cook on the other,” Brown says.
Last year, Gooding published his latest in a long line of recipe books, The Good Farm Cookbook, which he co-wrote with Brown. His speciality, she says, is that he “cooks protein really well”.
“It’s the sauces that he makes for everything. I’d be too lazy to go to the effort of doing the thing that makes it so amazing.”
Embracing the unexpected
Before their family trip to Wollombi, Brown had been planning a “weekend of sun”. Perhaps they might find a waterfall on the way up, maybe go for a swim. But some things we just can’t control.
“It was actually kind of great that it rained,” Brown says. “It made us do different things.”
In lieu of a waterfall swim, the family made the most of the off-road capabilities of the Outlander Plug-In Hybrid EV, exploring some nearby (and muddy) tracks.
In the days leading up to their trip, storms across NSW had been so severe that thousands of residents had been left without power, including around Wollombi.
Not ideal for a road trip in an electric vehicle, you might think. But again, Brown and Gooding found themselves grateful for some of the Outlander’s features.
Were they to find themselves unable to plug in the car, they knew they’d still be able to charge it; through regenerative braking, the Outlander’s battery charges while it’s being driven. And one morning, parked at a particularly scenic lookout, they used the car’s two domestic power sockets to power a kettle and toaster, rustling up an outdoor breakfast with a view.
“It’s the things that you don’t plan for that make a trip quite special,” Brown says.
Learn more about the Mitsubishi Outlander Plug-in Hybrid EV, built for Australian adventures.
