When it became clear their Wartook business the Happy Wanderer Holiday Resort and Caravan Park would be in the line of the Northern Grampians Complex fire, they evacuated.

It was on Friday January 17, when eating breakfast in the hotel where they had stayed for the night, that the couple learned some of their buildings were gone.

“We knew we could be (impacted) because of the area we're surrounded by. We had a vacant block next door with a lot of trees. There was always the potential for bushfires,” Mrs McLachlan said.

“We believe the property was impacted in the early hours of Friday morning.”

SPECIAL FEATURE: Northern Grampians Complex fire, five years on

The McLachlans’ plan was always to leave early if a fire threatened their business and home.

“We're not firefighters or members of the CFA. We’re originally from Melbourne,” Mrs McLachlan said.

“We don't know how to fight a bushfire. It was always our intention to leave it to (the professionals) and we wouldn't get in their way.”

When the couple left that Thursday night, they thought the would be going back the next day.

“We were having breakfast in the motel dining room the next morning and there was a TV in the room. A report came on about the bushfires, and they said some buildings had been lost at the Happy Wanderer,” Mrs McLachlan said.

“That was the first we heard. We didn't know what buildings or how many… whether it was most, a little bit. And we couldn’t get any information at that stage.”

It was a couple of days before the McLachlans were able to return to the area. They lost their home, office, shop, workshop, and a shed.

“Basically what survived is the middle bit, where the cabins are,” Mrs McLachlan said.

She said a Country Fire Authority member escorted them around the property in an authority vehicle.

“It was a bit confusing as to how some things survived being so close to something else that burnt,” she said.

“It’s the nature of fire I suppose. Where the house stood was like a crime scene. 

“They had to check for asbestos being an old building.

“We ended going down to our daughter's in Melbourne and leaving them to it.

“Then we came back and had emergency housing in town for a good couple of weeks.

“After that we traveled from there back here when we were allowed to start cleaning up.

“We had to purchase equipment first, because it all went up in the fire – we didn’t have a chainsaw, shovel, wheelbarrow, nothing.

“But friends and the community rallied and they helped us.”

About seven months after the fire, the couple reopened their business.

“We cleared a storeroom and set that up as a reception and small kiosk,” Mrs McLachlan said.

“We were able to take a few guests, campers and regulars who knew our situation, and kept on going from there.

“We got into the house in June 2016. The shop was reopened a month or so after that.”

The McLachlans said getting their house rebuilt took longer than they hoped.

“When the Governor-General came down, he made a promise that everything would be fast-tracked,” Mr McLachlan said

“I'm not having a go at him personally – I've got no doubt that what he said, he believed was going to happen.

“But once he'd gone, never once did he come back to ask how things were going.

“We got looked after, but very slowly.

“You know things aren't going to happen overnight, but there are times you're waiting for one department to get something to another to look at you wonder why things are taking so long.”

Mrs McLachlan said one of the hardest parts of recovery was helping others overcome their fears.

“We lost school groups because parents didn't want them to come to the Grampians. Once you lose them, it's very hard to get them back,” she said.

“The figures went down for quite a while and we're in the process of trying to get past where we started.”