There are some valid reasons for VE's, however most experienced midwives don't NEED to do one to check progress. They can tell from the behaviour of the woman in labour. The thing with a VE is that it's only as accurate as the person who gives in. Say you're looking at a piece of string, and I ask you to estimate how long it is, and I ask 5 other people to estimate as well. Chances are that everyone will have a different estimation.

VE's might show you to be 5cm at one exam, but that doesn't mean that you won't dilate to 10 in the next half hour ... they are shown time and time again to be a very poorly evidence based method of assessing labour progression.

You can hire a midwife and have a homebirth, that's about the closest you'll get to the farm in Australia .... I reckon it's good!