Kasie Watson was born and grew up in Bendigo. Her first job as a teenager, was to sell bikinis in a surf shop in the small fishing town of Robe, in South Australia.
She then spent year as a Jillaroo on a cattle station in Western Australia - “a huge place up in the Kimberley, where I looked after the family’s kids and chased a few cows around.”
“That part of Australia feels like a whole different country to Victoria. It’s isolated, vast and beautiful, and everyone keeps an eye out for each other. If you break down, someone will stop and help you fix things. There’s none of the apathy you get in city living. It was a great time in my life – an amazing time.”
In her early twenties, she started a goldsmithing course at North Melbourne Institute of Technology and, although she didn’t complete it, she found herself in the jewellery business anyway.
“I spent twelve years working as a jewellery valuer, selling gemstones and diamonds throughout Australia and making regular buying trips into Asia. I travelled a lot in China, Thailand, India and Vietnam. I’d love to go back to India – I’d also love to go to Lord Howe Island, and to Italy and Spain.
“I love travelling and apart from Asia, I’ve travelled a lot in North and Central America, down to Mexico. I have a list of places I want to go to on my phone a mile long.”
In the meantime, Kasie is living in Trentham – “I’m a new import” - establishing her retail and myotherapy (muscular rehabilitation) business. She moved there in 2016 from Melbourne, where she managed a similar business in Fairfield.
“I wanted to set up on my own but Melbourne rents were too expensive. My sister bought a house in Trentham seven years ago, and moved here two years later, and we used to come for weekends. It’s a beautiful area and rents are much cheaper – and there are a lot of like-minded people here who care about the environment. I sell environmentally sustainable products so that was important to me.
“Living close to Nature is important to me. I can step outside my back door and be in the Wombat State Forest within minutes. It’s a special place to live, with a great community of very interesting, welcoming people. Central Victoria as a whole is a unique place. It has great small towns and you’re seldom more than fifteen minutes from somewhere new and interesting to explore.
“The Future? I'm about to start study in oncology massage for people undergoing cancer treatment; and I'm looking forward to growing my skill set in myotherapy, helping people to heal through massage."
"Sometimes I think about going back to jewellery. When I was younger, I decided it wasn’t for me, I didn’t have the hand strength but now, I think I’d like to explore that creative side of me. I’ve done a lot of things and moved around a lot but I loved working in jewellery because of the interaction with people. I guess that’s why I’m still in retail – working in a shop and talking to people - www.thegreenstore.com.au