Oh, how that cold could stab right to the core, it made you feel as though you would never be warm again.

I was sitting with a friend, TV playing in the background, scrolling through Facebook, when I came upon a photograph of an old acquaintance from high school. She was having a date with her partner by the beach in Sydney.

Feeling the threat of winter looming, and looking at this golden, sun-soaked image, I was so very jealous of her life- a life by the sea.

I complained at length to my friend on the sofa, and he asked me a simple question: “Why don't you go and live by the sea, then?”

I had no ready answer to that question.  I had not come up with one by the following morning.

That evening I called a mortgage broker to find out what shape my mortgage was in, and I made an appointment to see him the following day.

He was also a real estate agent.  His advice was that the sale of my house was not impossible, and that if I moved somewhere cheap, I could pay off most of the mortgage with the money from the sale of the house in Canberra.

So, I began the search for the perfect town.  I made a matrix of weighted selection criteria.  I included proximity to the ocean.

After living for seven years in Canberra, climate was very important.  I looked at house prices.  Crime rates. Median age. I found data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics, the Bureau of Meteorology.  I asked everyone I knew for advice.

I was determined to move to the best place in Australia.

After two weeks of research, my house was ready to go on the market, and I had given my notice at work. I had narrowed the search down to five towns:  two in Queensland, two in Victoria – and Narooma, NSW.

I started phoning places in the towns.  I called police stations – asking if they got called out often, where to, what for.  I called random businesses, post offices.  After a lengthy process, Narooma was looking to be the best town in Australia.

It was cheaper than the towns in Queensland, and more temperate than the towns in Victoria. So I wanted to check it out.

I came down for a night with a friend, and we arrived in the dark.  We were exhausted, but couldn't help but notice that somewhere around Clyde Mountain, the icy grip of late autumn had let go of us, and we were welcomed by the balmy breath of Narooma's warm winds.

When we woke up the next morning and crossed the bridge, I knew at once that this was the town for me. And possibly the best town in the world.

I fell in love with Narooma instantly, effortlessly, and entirely.  The water in the inlet was a shade of the most impossible blue.

I looked at a few houses, and came back the next weekend to see a couple more.  I found the one for me, a delightful house with a wood heater and a plum tree in the garden.  Best of all, the bank doesn't own very much of it.

Less than three months from the day that my friend asked me why I didn't go and live by the sea, I had sold my house, quit my job, and bought a new house in paradise.

I wanted to share this story so that you could be reminded just how special our town is.  We have the second most temperate climate in the world, after Malta, because of the microclimate formed by our island and our mountains.

In the ocean, the lakes, and the rainforest we have some of the most spectacular birds and fish, and enjoy the company of seals, whales and dolphins.

Yesterday I saw an eagle with a wingspan broader than mine, and a possum disappearing into the forest with a guilty little sprint, carrying an ill-gotten strawberry.

Our town has a population of 8,500 people. Whether we were born here or drawn here, we should consider ourselves 8,500 of the luckiest people in the world.