THROWBACK: How city girl turned pilot & farmer Debbie Dowden has "seized life by the throat"

Debbie Dowden arrived in Australia by boat when she was just 3 years old. Her family were ‘10 pound poms’ in search of a sunnier life in Australia. Little did she know that life would see her raising 4 children 600kms from Perth in Outback Western Australia. Debbie was working as a theory instructor at a flight school when she decided that she actually wanted to fly the planes, not just teach people about them. It was here that she met her husband Ash- and she approached her relationship with Ash the same way she did with learning to fly, getting out of her comfort zone. As a young single mum at the time, all of Debbie’s family lived in Perth. But when she met Ash Dowden, the owner of Challa Station in the Southern Rangelands of WA, she knew she needed to go bush. And bush she went. She packed up her life, her daughter and quit her job and arrived at Challa with limited experience. Fast forward to 2025 and she’s now running it alongside her husband. This is her story.

You can listen to THROWBACK: How city girl turned pilot & farmer Debbie Dowden has "seized life by the throat" online on Radio and Podcast. Open the player on this page to stream the available audio.

THROWBACK: How city girl turned pilot & farmer Debbie Dowden has "seized life by the throat" is an episode from Motherland Australia by Stephanie Trethewey.

This episode is 46:11 long.

This episode was published on Jan 18, 2026.

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