In 2010, Karina and

In 2010, Karina and Craig Waters flew from their hometown of Perth in Australia to Paris, picked up a hire car and drove to a tiny village called Chateau Verdun in Ariège. They had dreamed of buying a little French cottage, something that they could visit for holidays each year, a lock-up and go home, easy to care for. Browsing the internet for properties one day, their 14-year old son came across a murky photo of a somewhat dishevelled chateau with a majestic mountain backdrop, and something about it made him tell his mum – and despite it looking a bit run down, something about it made her want to see it for herself. A love heart seals the deal It wasn’t what she had in mind, but it pulled at her heart strings. However, when Karina, a former accountant, and Craig, now a retired surgeon, stopped at the gates to the Chateau de Gudanes and peered through the overgrown garden it was a shock. The murky photos hadn’t done the decay justice. “We couldn’t get past the first few rooms, there was so much rubble everywhere” says Karina. And yet they both fell in love with the castle there and then. “I can even pinpoint the moment it happened. In what is now the Rose Salon, amidst the tons of rubble we could see a red marble fireplace, and on the corner was an engraved heart. In that moment” says Karina “we felt that so much love had gone into this place, we wanted to give it back its heart.” The fairy tale Château de Gudanes Once upon a time, a beautiful castle in the far south of France was unloved and forgotten. Until someone came along and woke the sleeping beauty. Janine Marsh visits the castle ten years on… The Rose Salon the heart of the castle Ten years of renovation The Château turned out to be a Class 1 Listed Historic Monument which made just about everything a challenge. Buying it took three years. Getting permission to do anything from clearing the rubble to repairing the floors can take years – and very little can be done without permission from several authorities. But Karina was determined to bring this beautiful castle back to life. Since 2013, when 8 | The Good Life France The Good Life France | 9