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Brotherly love for Toodyay

Rueben HaleThe West Australian

Former Big Brother housemate Nathan "Marty" Martin has returned to the family farm.

It has been a long road back to the family's Toodyay property for Nathan, who entered the Big Brother house as a naive 19-year-old Muresk College agriculture student more than 13 years ago.

The charismatic local farm boy was runner-up on the second Big Brother series in 2002 and now he and wife Lexi say they are looking forward to raising their young family on the picturesque property.

They will eventually take the reins from his dad John and stepmother Sally.

Nathan became a household name as the laidback country charmer in the house, and his relationship with fellow housemate Jess Hardy became a national obsession.

The couple's controversial romance led to their marriage - and a spinoff show Marty and Jess: An Outback Wedding outside of the house after the season ended - which ended in divorce in 2006.

Looking outside the family's self-built bungalow home on top of the property's rolling grassy hills, Nathan, now 33, says life for the couple and their three boys Sam (5), Billy (3) and Joel (1) could not be better.

The Martins' first-generation property is set in part of the State's blue ribbon farming country, where the family has grown primarily hay and run livestock, since Nathan's dad moved to the area from Collie.

Nathan and his family had been juggling running a successful landscaping business in Stoneville and also helping on the farm for several years.

"I'm just stoked to be back here with my wife and kids as part of the farm, and helping dad," he said.

"Just getting back to the family property has been a big process for me.

"It's been great working with dad again baling this season's hay and it's especially good because so far we've avoided a run in.

"But seriously, it's been a good season with still a lot of work ahead of us yet to do."

Nathan and John are now busy planning the farm's succession, with a sense of optimism about the future of the farm.

"The outlook is good for farming, especially for livestock with the rapidly developing overseas livestock trade," John said.

With a shortage of cattle and sheep, the future is bright, but Nathan will have to decide what type of enterprise he will run and he is weighing up his options.

"Do we try and expand and go into more debt, or do we just keep running the farm as the solid enterprise that it currently is," he said.

"It's just great to have those options in the current positive agricultural environment."

Nathan says he doesn't miss being a celebrity as he enjoys a more "normal" life on the farm.

"For the first few years after the shows, I used to get recognised in the streets, but now it's great to be just plain old Nathan," he said.

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