‘It’s a bloody good life, and cheap’: Where? On a riverboat in France

June 14, 2026 — 5:00am

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For the past decade, John and Jane Rose have spent half the year in France on their riverboat, living their dream for a remarkably low cost. I caught up with them just before their departure this year.

Fitz: John, mon ami, let’s get to the backstory first. When did you two meet?

JR: In 1993, Jane was at university studying, and I was working in another university as an administrator, and it was love at first sight.

Fitz: So in the early 2000s, you’re living in Sydney when you two made your first decision to rat on the rat race and leave us, yes?

JR: Yes. We were in Gladesville, struggling with a mortgage. I was working as an executive consultant, going out most nights of the week to functions, earning good money in a high-pressure corporate atmosphere, dealing with the demands of politicians and business people but not enjoying it. Life in Sydney was impossible – super expensive, a permanent construction site and such terrible traffic; it took ages to get anywhere. There was a hangover from the Olympics that just never cleared up. Sydney was not a fun place to be.

Fitz: So you decide to decamp and settle somewhere between Woop Woop and the Black Stump in southern NSW?

JR: Yes, after a couple of ventures elsewhere, we moved down to the tiny town of Adelong in the Snowy Valleys, where we bought an abandoned bakery with a wood-fired oven that was over 150 years old.

Fitz: As you do. So you were still thumbing your nose at the rest of us! You’re basically rejecting the materialistic life, you’re rejecting mortgages, you’re rejecting the way the rest of us live, aren’t you? You decided you were sooooo much better than us!

JR: Well, I had realised that the best person to work for, and maybe the only person left standing who would employ me, was me. I’d done a course on how to bake bread in the traditional way and felt it might work in a country town. So Jane and I spent six months renovating the bakery and one great day we opened the door with freshly baked loaves.

JR: Like ... hot cakes. The bakery was greeted like the second coming. The little town had everything else bar an old-style bakery and it sort of completed things for everyone.

Fitz: But still that wasn’t good enough for you? You decided to turn your back on that too, for at least six months a year. Will your treason never end? Where did the idea to go to France come........

© Brisbane Times