Olivia Newton-John to sell her Ballina getaway for $5.5m after almost 40 years

Decades before the Far North Coast became a mecca to Hollywood heart throbs like Matt Damon and Chris Hemsworth, the then-hippie hinterland was a secret getaway for one of our most enduring stars.

Olivia Newton-John shot to global stardom on the back of the 1978 hit movie Grease, and two years later flew to Ballina with lifelong friend Jillian McGrath to look at buying a private country escape she could call her home in Australia.

“It was about having a peaceful base that was completely private that was true to who she is: the animal lover and the environmentalist,” McGrath said this week.

Nearly 40 years later Newton-John still returns to the state’s Far North Coast, but is more likely to stay at the Gaia Retreat & Spa she co-founded in 2005, leaving the farm all but obsolete.

And that childhood friend is now a McGrath selling agent tasked with selling the property for more than $5.5 million.

Much has changed in Newton-John’s life and on the farm since she bought the Dalwood property near the township of Alstonville, about 37 kilometres south-west of Byron Bay.

She is a four-time Grammy winner and Living National Treasure who last year was the subject of a two-part telemovie and earlier this year scored a gong on this year’s Australia Day honours list for her ongoing support into cancer research.

The property footprint has increased, too. In 1981 Newton-John paid $622,00 for five adjoining lots, and added to the amalgamation again in 1983 and 2015 to create what is now a 55-hectare holding that includes pasture, a creek, two dams and a tennis court.

The pasture land that abuts the Victoria Park Nature Reserve is now an extension of the rainforest thanks to regeneration efforts about 15 years ago and the planting of more than 10,000 trees.

The original house was rebuilt in 2002 into a French-inspired country house with a vast country kitchen and a self-contained guest retreat.

“The expansive view from the farm is breathtaking and captured my heart all those years ago,” Newton-John said. “The 136-plus acres gives total privacy with peaceful calming energy.

“It’s a magical spot that is the home for many different species of wildlife,” she said.

The Far North Coast is no longer the hippie enclave it was either.

Paul Hogan put Byron Bay on the map in the late 1980s when he bought his Possum Creek property for his then-wife Linda Kozlowski, and in more recent years the A-listers have arrived in their droves, including Liam Hemsworth and his wife Miley Cyrus, Simon Baker, Gemma Ward and musicians Jon Farriss, Natalie Imbruglia and Jack Johnson.

The expressions of interest campaign kicks off on Monday.