Zoe Moffatt
Last year Marc Serafino pointed out over this apple orchard in Darraweit Guim and described how the water came up over the hill, leaving “tsunami-like” damage.
One year on, Marc sits down and reflects how this life-altering disaster impacted his business- Darraweit Valley Cider- personal life, and how he is feeling heading into this year’s season.
“Recovery has been great but intense,” Marc said.
“We were dealing with a double whammy. We both live here and work here, so we had our house and our business devastated.
“I had never gone through anything quite like that. We had everything destroyed… [from] personal possessions [and] photos.
“We had all of that to deal with as well as putting back together a business, and trying to survive financially.
“So it was a massive upheaval of the house, of life and then of course, a huge smash to the business.”
While the Darraweit Valley Cider recovery has gone well, Marc said the business is in need of a good summer.
Heading into a summer tipped to be full of heatwaves and bushfires, and with blazes and flooding already tearing through the state’s east, Marc said this reality and its impact scares him.
“We’ve now got to have a very good summer to repay and get back on top, and that’s the only thing that scares me.
“If there’s bushfires in the area, it might have a real impact on our numbers. If we had a bad season this season, I don’t think we’ll survive.
“But it’s looking good, don’t get me wrong. I’m a positive person, and numbers have been great.”
Despite these struggles, Marc said the community connection was an absolute positive from the floods, and for him, it was the moment Darraweit Valley Cider arrived in the community.
“We perhaps were just a business that existed in the community before [the floods], but we just became part of the community [afterwards],” he said.
“The people that came to help us have become… regular customers now. We’re employing their kids.
“It wasn’t all negative to come from the flood. When we rebuilt the business, I think we rebuilt a better one that we had, because we made all these changes.”
