Settling into the country town has been made easy by friendly locals and a growing multicultural community they told The Argus. 

Dharmesh arrived here in 2010 looking for work as an engineer before his wife Bhumika and young son Rudra joined him two months later. 

“We came to Australia because we wanted that opportunity to live overseas and pursued permanent residency,” Mr Patel said. 

“It’s a safe country with good people.”

Not everything went to plan in that first nine months though in Australia, as the culture shock and the job search didn’t go to plan.

However, after finding work at Bayswater Power Station, life started to look up. 

“We learnt the language in India but when we actually came here, the pronunciations and accent made communication hard,” Mr Patel said.

“However, with time we got better.”

Mr Patel said he preferred Singleton to Sydney’s Parramatta (where he was based when he arrived) because everything is “rush rush” in the city and nobody has time, unlike in the country. 

“People welcome you with a smile,” he said. 

The affinity with the open spaces comes from Mr Patel’s upbringing living on a farm in the region of Gujarati, located in central western India. 

“India is known as a small Europe because there are so many regions, which each have their own language,” he laughed.

“Sometimes you find that people speak English because it’s easier than the learning other region’s language.”

A moment the family is looking forward to this year is their son Rudra starting kindergarten here in Singleton.