Kylie Minogue Moves On

SELLER: Kylie Minogue
LOCATION: Mount Wellington Road, French Island, Australia
PRICE: $1,800,000-2,000,000 AUD
SIZE: 221 acres, 4 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms

YOUR MAMAS NOTES: Thanks to a leg up from Lovely Luiza from Down Under, Your Mama is pleased to present our first ever discussion about a property in Australia. Hoots and hollers all around. Your Mama apologizes in advance that we simply don't know very much about the Australian property market, so at times we're bound to sound like one of those moe-rons who insist on talking about things they know nothing about.

Princess Luiza linked Your Mama over to an Australian news item which announced that Australian singing superstar and cancer survivor Kylie Minogue has put her French Island hideaway on the market "for tender," which Your Mama thinks is Australian for a sealed bid but very well may just mean "for sale." See kids, we're already sounding like an ignoramus, but try to give us a bit of leeway because Your Mama not wise to the real estate lingo particular to that part of the world.

Listing information indicates the toothy pop phenom is asking between $1,800,000 and $2,000,000 Aussie dollars for the 221 acre property, which translates to roughly to about $1,700,000-1,885,000 US dollars. Since Your Mama has no idea how to look up property records in remote regions of Australia, or any part of Australia for that matter, we'll have to rely on recent press reports in which "insiders" whispered to reporters that Miss Minogue and her then beau-friend, the hotsy totsy Parisian born ack-tor Oliver Martinez, bought the property three years ago for just 400,000 Aussie. The big spread, which they called Beauciel, sits on a high point of of the island with long, wide, and serene bay views over the virtually untouched terrain of French Island.

Naturally, Your Mama had never even heard of French Island, but a little research on the internets and we discover that the virtually unspoiled island is an eco-traveler's paradise sitting smack in the middle of Western Port Bay just 60 kilometers from Melbourne. The island, accessible only by ferry, was once home to the somewhat famous and cushy Mcleod Prison Farm, but now claims just 80 permanent residents as well as scads of potoroos (rat kangaroos) and the largest Koala population in Australia.

After purchasing the two parcel property, the now split couple are said to have dumped another million (or so) Aussie dollars on house renovations, landscaping, and the addition of solar and wind power, something that Your Mama is quite surprised not to see more rich and famous people doing since they are in fact the ones with the pockets deep enough to forge an environmentally friendly path in a world with increasingly decreasing non-renewable resources.

In the after math of her successful battle to beat breast cancer three years ago, Miss Minogue and Mister Martinez retreated to this remote hideaway to recooperate without having to deal with long and unforgiving lenses of the paps being shoved in their faces every time they tried to go to the post office or the grocery market. However, it seems pretty obvious from the lack of personal objects in the residence that the Aussie superstar has already packed her Louis Vuitton cases and decamped from French Island in favor of another secluded getaway that does not remind her of Mister Martinez or The Big "C." Who could blame her?

According to listing information, in addition to the 4 bedroom and 2 bathroom main house, the recently fenced and mostly self sufficient property contains organic fruit and vegetable gardens, plenty of room to run sheep and cattle, a walled garden made from corrugated iron and reclaimed century-old timber that protects a small grove of fruit trees, large rainwater storage tanks, and a restored chicory kiln that houses a back up diesel generator.

Although Your Mama and the Dr. Cooter would have to ferry in all sorts of furniture because, all due respect Miss Minogue, what's currently in the house hurts our eyes and offends our delicate sensibilities, we could happily whittle away a few isolated months every year at Beauciel puttering around the organic gardens and sitting on the large bay view decks with a stack of books and a big pitcher of gin and tonics. The only question for us is would the Australian government allow us to fly in our long bodied bitches Linda and Beverly as well as our sour tempered pussycat Sugar? Because even though that cat is a real bitch, we couldn't go anywhere for that long without him.