Siobhan O’Brien, 52, shares her harrowing story:
Walking out the front door, I stopped short when I spotted the familiar yellow and black markings of our favourite guest.
“Patrick the python is on the porch again, kids,” I yelled into the house.
Growing up in Canberra, I never expected to move somewhere so isolated – until I fell in love with my husband, Greg.
A nature lover, he wanted to live in the wilderness, so we built our dream home on top of a hill in Bawley Point, NSW, surrounded by sea and forest.
Read more: The Cobargo NSW bushfires destroyed my home
After 16 years, we were used to weather extremes, fallen trees and power outages, but we wouldn’t have it any other way.
Greg, Evie, then 16, Earl, 14, Beatrice, 12, and I especially loved the daily sightings of turtles, goannas, roos and possums.
“Let’s get going, the camper is packed. Patrick will be here when we get back,” Greg laughed.
It was December 2019, and we were heading off to Merimbula, two and a half hours away, to relax before Christmas.
It would also give me plenty of time to work on the novel I had always dreamed of writing.
But four days after arriving, I received a heart-stopping notification.
Bawley Point is on emergency bushfire alert, it read.
“Greg!” I screamed. “What are we going to do?”
“My parents are still there,” he said urgently. “I’ll get them out, then defend the house.”
Within minutes, he was gone.
I waited anxiously for an update and hours later he managed to call.
Thankfully, he’d got his parents safely to Canberra, but after making it home the roads were all shut.
“The flames are 60 feet high and only 50m from the house,” he told me. “As soon as I’ve doused one fire, I need to deal with another.”
“Greg, what if we lose everything? What if we lose you?” I choked, barely able to say my biggest fear out loud.
“That’s not going to happen, Siobhan,” he assured me.
Over the next two days, we stayed in contact, but on day three Greg’s phone just rang and rang.
Don’t let your mind go there, I told myself.
Tearing my hair out with anxiety, I paced the campervan, not knowing if my husband was dead or alive.
A complete mess, I spent the day crying in secret, pretending to the kids that everything was fine.
Finally, days later, Greg called. I couldn’t even speak when I picked up the phone.
“I’m okay,” he reassured me over and over again until I believed it. “The telephone lines were burnt to a crisp, so I haven’t had signal for days.”
A team of 12 locals and the fireys had come up to the house to help him keep the fire at bay.
“I couldn’t have done it without them, but I need to stay longer,” he said.
“The kids and I will be waiting for you,” I said through tears.
To help control my anxiety, I poured myself into my writing.
My novel was about Australian WW1 veterans and, eerily, the part I was working on involved a fire.
Ten days after the fires broke out, the roads out of Bawley Point re-opened.
I could barely believe my eyes when Greg appeared at the camp site.
The kids, Greg and I all just stood together and hugged each other for the longest time.
He told us everything he’d been through, from having barely any food, to not being able to sleep in case the bushfires got out of control.
“Let’s go home,” Greg said eventually.
Thankfully, the house was still standing, but it was covered in soot and the putrid smell of smoke.
The devastation surrounding it brought tears to my eyes.
It looked like an apocalypse.
The Black Summer bushfires proved to be one of the most catastrophic fire seasons on record in Australia.
Even the tops of the tallest gum trees were blackened, and the kangaroos that once roamed the fields were starving and burnt, if they were alive.
Eerily silent, I realised what was missing.
“There’s no birdsong,” I whispered to Greg.
The bushfires raged nearby for eight more weeks and we defended the house together.
In the months that followed, we tried to make it a home again, but it wasn’t the same. The loss of the wildlife really impacted me and I kept thinking how I could’ve lost Greg.
My anxiety spiralled and the littlest thing caused me to burst into tears.
“I think I need to get some help,” I admitted to Greg one night.
My local doctor referred me to a psychologist.
“You have developed PTSD from what happened,” she told me gently.
I was relieved to finally have an explanation.
I focused on writing, and used my experience of PTSD to relate to the characters in my novel.
Soon after, COVID hit, so I took the time to heal.
I’ve always wanted to sing, I thought.
So I signed up for lessons on Zoom.
“Choose a song and pour all the emotion you feel into it,” my teacher Jackie advised me.
I sang Cry Me a River and when I looked up Jackie was sobbing.
After a year of lessons, I started a roots and blues band called Minnie and the Moonrakers.
Greg had always been musical, so he joined us on lead guitar. Soon we were touring all over Oz!
“Don’t you ever feel nervous singing on stage?” an audience member asked after a show one night.
“After everything I’ve been through, nothing scares me,” I explained.
In 2022, I completed the novel that helped me heal, All the Golden Light.
I couldn’t believe it when Harper Collins wanted to publish my book.
We left Bawley Point, and have tried to put the memories of Black Summer behind us, but a piece of my heart will always remain inside the house I raised my children in.
