How turning 50 made Kasey Chambers a free spirit again

Just before midnight in an empty car park on the outskirts of Australia's country music capital, Kasey Chambers crouches to chat to a young fan.

Having just helped honour Keith Urban at the 2025 Tamworth Golden Guitar Awards, Chambers says her goodbyes, climbs into her hulking Chevy ute and drives off into the warm January night.

The budding musician stands still under the streetlights watching her go, waving in awe.

With songs that remain firmly on the soundtrack to Australian life and a swag of ARIA Awards and Golden Guitars, these moments of connection are what matter most to Chambers now.

She has just returned from a family adventure to the Pilbara in WA, travelling in that same ute and towing a caravan, hosting workshops in the red dust with Nyiyaparli kids.

In September, she will fly to Africa to record music with students at Our Rainbow House school in Zambia.

"My little free spirit relates to kids so much ... I get to be really present with kids," Chambers told AAP.

"Sometimes as adults we lose that, when we get on schedules and everything's about results or outcomes."

Chambers turned 50 in June, a milestone that has her feeling more like herself than ever before.

The woman who wrote Not Pretty Enough and its reflective companion piece Ain't No Little Girl is unabashedly embracing getting older.

In an Instagram post ahead of her birthday, Chambers told her 91,000 followers: "Everything that I have been through, both good and bad, they all show here on my face in all these beautiful wrinkles that I wear so proudly."

Ageing has helped her re-connect with the girl who grew up in the back of her family's Land Cruiser as her dad made a living hunting foxes.

"I feel more like who I used to be, when I was running around on the Nullarbor Plain as a kid and living in the outback and not knowing that society even existed," Chambers said.

"It's just reminding yourself of who you are deep down when nobody's watching."