For more than three decades, Tracey Horton held all the cards. She’s a self-confessed city girl and her husband, Paul (a born-and-bred country boy), had happily lived in her world. Raising four daughters in the heart of the Gold Coast while navigating businesses, family and a fast-paced life, the couple had well and truly settled in the city.

And then a curveball – in the shape of a cancer diagnosis for Paul – upended everything Tracey thought she knew about the way the second act of life was going to play out. “Paul was diagnosed with prostate cancer in 2016,” she says. It was news that reshaped the way the couple looked at life. For Tracey in particular, it was a reality that made her want to give in to Paul’s quiet wish: to get away from the city and move somewhere quieter.

“The treatment lowers testosterone so Paul wasn’t sleeping well,” she says. As a project manager who conducted a lot of work in NSW, he was navigating 4am wake-ups to manage the daylight saving time difference over the border. “He’d been wanting to move to Kingscliff for about three years,” says Tracey.

But it was an early-morning walk on the beach together that finally helped make up Tracey’s mind. “We were just talking about life and the future and  as I watched others start to arrive, I had a deep sense that it was time to get out of the hustle.”

The couple found their dream house – a “beach shack” steps from the ocean – but their excitement was tempered by anxiety about moving away from their kids. “Three of our kids lived within 10 minutes of our home on the Gold Coast,” says Tracey. “And they all have children. My youngest daughter is autistic and has two autistic children so on top of managing three businesses, I had a really full life.

Concern about how she would manage was underlined by lingering trauma from COVID shutdowns, where families who lived across state lines from one another were often separated for months at a time. “I knew we were only moving 30 minutes away but having the border in between us really freaked me out,” she says. “It took a lot of working through the anxiety to realise we could make the move.”

But work through it they did and almost as soon as Tracey and Paul made the move, that low-level hum of city stress melted away. Paul, whose cancer is in remission, spends every morning in the surf. “He looks 10 years younger,” says Tracey. “He grabs his board and heads off. I wake up in an empty bed because he’s already out there.”

The couple’s home is located at the point, where the whales come in close during their winter migration. “I get an incredible view of whales less than 400 metres off the beach.” But the move hasn’t been without its quirks. Tracey says Kingscliff’s infrastructure is lacking in comparison to its glitzy neighbour up north. “I’ve become an expert in online shopping and when I need to go back to the Gold Coast, it’s just up the road.”

And yet, the village atmosphere has proven to be a sanctuary for Tracey’s entire family. “Everybody talks to you here. Our autistic grandchildren come down every other weekend. We take them overnight so their parents have some time alone and they love it. People are getting to know them – the local shop even remembers their breakfast order. I don’t know why I fought Paul on this move for as long as I did!”

Still marvelling that letting Paul “win one” with their move turned out to be one of the best decisions of her life, Tracey believes they’re perfectly positioned to lean into the beauty of their next chapter together.

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Published: 15 April 2026