Kate Ritchie has announced her departure from Home and Away this morning, putting a cap on her record for the longest continuous role in an Aussie drama series.
"After 20 years of Home and Away, it's time for a change," she said on Sunrise this morning.
"I'm going to be filming my final scenes come December.
"The time is right. It's been an emotional decision and a long road to come to this decision but there's no kind of hidden agenda.
"I'm now a 29 year old woman who needs to go out there and do something different.
"I often tell my sister I am completely jealous of her because she travelled the world for five years. I look at things like that and think I never had the chance to do things like that.
"I think what I want to do is finish the year well and make the most of the last few months on the show because I will miss it."
Ritchie has been playing Sally Fletcher on Home and Away for 19 years.
She is expected to stay with Channel 7 and work on other projects, News Ltd reports.
Upon winning the Gold Logie award earlier this year, Ritchie hinted she was ready to move on with her career.
"I've finally started to embrace that I've been on Home and Away for such a long time rather than worry about what it's going to do to my career," she said.
"I'm certainly not ashamed of that and I'm not going to try to bury that, but it's been nice for people to see a bit more of me.
"The network has been great — they gave me time off to do radio and now It Takes Two."
With Ritchie out of the picture, Ray Meagher, who plays Alf Stewart on the show, would be the only original cast member left.
Meagher would then take the longest continuous acting role in Australia record from Ritchie, which they both currently share.
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this is shocking, home and away won't be the same without her
ok ok i know she was a good character etc 
She's like one of the best characters on the show!!
