Snr Cst Kelson will be the lock-up keeper at Lawrence Police Station, which is in a town 13 kilometres to the north of Grafton with a population of just 1000.

"I'll be working with Maclean, Yamba and Iluka police and occasionally down at Grafton, so it sounds like it will be a lot of driving," she said.

"I know some retired and serving police around Grafton, so I thought the area would suit me.

"For the last few years of my career, I thought I'd just try something different. And this is pretty different. To be a lock-up keeper at a tiny country town on the coast. "

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The most significant change will be working on her own, the self-confessed animal lover said, but there will be plenty of room for her two horses and dog. She is also looking forward to having time to do some fishing and kayaking and enjoying the coastal life.

"Otherwise, the job is pretty much the same wherever you go - mental health issues, domestic violence and drugs but hopefully not as much," Snr Cst Kelson said.

Snr Cst Kelson is the longest-serving officer at Inverell Station, and three decades ago, her love of wide-open space brought her to the country from The Rocks in Sydney, where she was in the mounted police force.

And while the first few snake removal jobs and call-outs to remove cattle from the road were a novelty and a change from bag snatching and car theft, it was the distances that surprised her most of all.

"I thought living on a farm would be like living on a winery at Mudgee," she told The Times.

"It wasn't what I expected, but it was a pleasant surprise. No one in the police force in Sydney appreciates the distances between jobs.

"And I suppose one of the main differences between working here and in the city is that here every second person owns a firearm. So there's a lot of potential danger, but probably the big thing is not having any backup.

"That was what I found a little disturbing when I first came here. In Sydney, if you called other police for help, 30 police would come, but up here, you've got to rely on the gift of the gab to get yourself out of situations. So you learn to really communicate with people."

These days Snr Cst Kelson is the epitome of a 'country cop', her manager, Chief Inspector Rowan O'Brien, says. As the officer in charge of Inverell Police Station, he has observed Snr Cst Kelson for the last 15 years and says policing in a country setting comes naturally to her.

"She is really community-focused," Ch Insp O'Brien said.

"She is humble and quietly spoken, and she's been very low maintenance and just gets on with the job.

"You would struggle to find a person in Inverell who'd have a bad word to say about Vanessa ( or Ned, as she's affectionately known ), and that includes the people that we've processed through the dock as well, not just general community members and victims. She's firm but fair for all those that we arrest."

Policing in the country is unique, and both O'Brien and Kelson say consistency is key to managing this.

"You just have to treat everybody the way you would like to be treated," Snr Cst Kelson said. "Don't try to be anonymous it's not going to work."

Ch Insp O'Brien said it takes a natural ability to talk to people on multiple levels.

"The family of the person you lock up one night can be serving you at the checkout at the supermarket the next day," he said.

"Vanessa had the confidence of the community, and they also approached her on or off duty to seek assistance or supply information and that to me is the epitome of a country cop."

Snr Cst Kelson said she would miss the Inverell community, her friends and her colleagues, but there is one thing she is looking forward to at the new location - and that is getting through the shopping faster.

"Even though Inverell is a town of 12,000 people - everybody knows the police, so it makes shopping an interesting experience because it takes so long to get through the aisles," she laughed.

"And I'll miss working in a brand new police station too because we've waited so long for this great big beautiful building, but at least I got to work in it for a little while."

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