‘Really winded me’: Edwina Bartholomew’s wake-up call amid new family chapter

She’s still up at the crack of dawn to appear on Sunrise, and yet in her downtime Edwina Bartholomew still has her work cut out trying to make her family’s dream come true.

Edwina, 42, and her husband Neil Varcoe are knee-deep in the renovation of an historic hotel in the regional NSW town of Carcoar – and now the beloved TV star admits “some days feel like a lot of hard work with no return”.

Edwina and Neil – who are parents to Molly, six, and Tommy, three – fell in love with the picture-perfect village in the NSW Central West back in November 2023 when visiting with their kids.

Seeing the local inn was for sale, and realising its potential, they sent the listing to some “entrepreneurial friends” for consideration.

“It wasn’t until we found ourselves driving east, back in Sydney, along the heaving M4 with two sleeping kids in the car, that we considered it could be us,” Edwina shared in a column for Country Style in January 2026

“Could we leave Sydney? Could we move to the country? Could we run a pub? The answer was no.

“We couldn’t leave Sydney. Yet. We couldn’t move to the country. Yet. We couldn’t run a pub. Ever. But the idea stuck.”

When the couple returned to Carcoar a few months later and saw that another property – an 1880s guest house – was for sale, they decided to sell their Sydney home, buy it and transform it into a unique hotel.

Two and a half years on, the couple are beginning to paint the exteriors on the building they named Saltash Farm, with Edwina telling Country Style that the move was “already breathing life into the building”.

Except, the challenges of such an enormous project – for which Neil quit his digital media career to become a project manager for – are undeniable.

“Yesterday, I paid the biggest bill of our build so far and it really winded me,” Edwina shared in a candid Instagam post on May 27.

But she said she was spurred on to keep going by another entrepreneur who had gone “all in” on an idea – Treska, the owner of Fiora Estate, another boutique accommodation offering in Laggan, NSW.

“Thank you for doing the bonkers thing and going all in,” Treska wrote in a note to Edwina which the star shared with her Instagram followers.

“Thank you for sharing it all, reminding people it is really hard but also celebrating what ‘can’ be.”

Both Edwina and her husband have a very personal reason for wanting to embrace a new chapter – health struggles which they each had to navigate at different times during their relationship.

Edwina was 41 when a routine blood test revealed she was suffering from chronic myeloid leukaemia (CML), a blood and bone marrow cancer.

While she now says she’s feeling “really well”, it has meant the “go, go, go” approach to life that the mum-of-two had embraced for her entire working career has shifted.

“This has definitely been a huge takeaway for me that life can’t continue like that,” the star told Stellar in a candid 2024 interview.

“I’ve had to say to work, ‘I can’t now go back to work five days a week at 3am in the morning. It’s not something that I can do’.”

Neil, meanwhile, has gone through his own battle with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome.

Taking to LinkedIn previously to reflect on his move away from the city, Neil explained that he was doing it for his wife and kids.

“At times, I’ve wanted to pack up and head home – get another job in media or tech and let the dream fade,” he admitted.

“Then I think about why I am doing it. It’s for them. It’s always been about them.

“We’re not just building a family business. We’re making a life for ourselves and our children. What more remarkable thing is there?”

Edwina echoed her husband’s sentiment in a recent interview with TV Week.

“It makes you really stop and think about what’s important,” the star said of her health battle and the couple’s decision to start a new chapter.

“For us, this was a really important move and a decision that we made for our family. And the wonderful thing is we have the flexibility of work to make it happen.

“It’s been a chance to put our health first but also to be able to still do the things we absolutely love doing.”