Showing posts with label My Stories. Show all posts
Showing posts with label My Stories. Show all posts

Wednesday 7 June 2023

My Gold Coast Getaway


It had been a long time since my wife Denise and I had stayed a night on the Gold Coast, 11 years in fact. The last time we visited for a weekend away both our children were still in High School. Both are now married. So in the spirit of both being fifty-something empty nesters, we hit the highway south of Brisbane for a night on Australia's glitter strip. And boy... hasn't a lot changed since we were there last?


We kicked things off with a long lunch at the Fishermans Wharf Tavern (above) on the Broadwater, for a bit of winter sun and boat watching, before checking into the Mantra Crown Towers. I've always wanted to stay here, and for dinner we booked a table for two at Chiangmai Thai restaurant which was located downstairs by the pool. It's not surprising that things like this are a lot more affordable now that we don't have two kids in tow.

The cavernous interior of the Crown Towers, Surfers Paradise.

Chiangmai Thai restaurant, Crown Towers, Surfers Paradise.

Located in the heart of Surfers Paradise, our stay was situated beside the G-Link light rail. Right outside the resort's gates was the Cypress Avenue stop, but we chose instead to walk the few blocks to Cavill Avenue and spot what had changed along the way. In short, aside from the G-Link tracks that now command the majority of Cypress Avenue, a lot was different, yet not a lot had changed. I think we walked past the same discount tourist souvenir store trumping the same "bargains, bargains, bargains" recorded message that we heard back in 1993. Only in a economically challenged post-pandemic world, there were more empty storefronts lining the footpath than the last time we were here, and I found myself repeating the phrase 'I remember when' a lot!

The G-Link light rail goes right past the Mantra Crown Towers on Cypress Avenue.

The Clock Tower Hotel at Surfers Paradise, with the Crown Towers highrise centre in the background.

32 years after coming to Surfers Paradise on a date, here we are again in 2023.

Surfers Paradise for my wife and I, has always been a place we associated with our dating days in the early 1990's, back when I had just moved to Queensland from country Victoria in 1991. We must have ventured south for a day and evening out at least once a month. Living just up the highway from a holiday destination that my friends from my younger days had always bragged about visiting once, still has its advantages in 2023. Yet here I was all these years later with my wife of 30 years, enjoying a weekend away sans children, and still talking about our kids and the fact that 2023 will see us become Grandparents for the first time. I felt as though our life has changed just as much as the landscape.

So from the customary photo in Cavill Avenue of the Surfers Paradise sign, to exploring the beachfront markets, we trouped around some familiar haunts and reminisced about what used to be here or there before they built something new and bigger in its place. That's Surfers Paradise for you... a city that is constantly changing the same things.

And finishing up with a trip on the G-Link to Broadbeach South for some retail therapy.

Come next morning, a short trip aboard the G-Link took us to Broadbeach South and the giant Pacific Fair shopping centre. We went past a long-gone restaurant where I once had my 21st Birthday, and arrived at a shopping centre that is now ten times the size since we used to make a day of driving down for a day of shopping. These days I just like to get in and out, and am more interested in food and coffee than expensive items. Which is just as well, as every luxury brand like Versace, Louis Vuitton, Prada and so on seems to have set up store there.

So we brunched, had a coffee and got eyed suspiciously when we paused infront of the Gucci store. I guess in their defense I wasn't dressed the part. If only they knew I was the Author of over 20 books instead of mistaking me for a grey-haired Poppy to be, things might have been different. Then again, who am I kidding? I'll take Poppy to be anyday of the week! A short ride back to the resort and a midday checkout later, and we were back on the highway headed home. I'm glad we gave the Gold Coast another look after all those years!

Until next time...

Friday 23 December 2022

My 2022 Brisbane Christmas

Christmas in Brisbane has a new favourite must-do with the Town Hall Christmas light show.

As Christmas inches closer to being upon us and the year draws to a close, I feel it's important to reflect on the year that has been. Compared to my life this time last year, 2022 has been a year like no other! It's been a year full of changes, and throughout it I've almost been able to sense each change before the moment actually arrived. Its bizarre, but for a year that began with great uncertainty, it has ended in complete clarity. And of course, in returning to my wife's hometown of Brisbane after 14 years of living away, rediscovering some old favourite haunts and finding some new ones along the way such as the Town Hall Christmas lights (above) has been a lot of fun too!


Back in Brisbane, and enjoying the Town Hall Christmas Tree.

Let me highlight what a difference a year can make. Back on December 7, 2021 I wrote a post titled #21 Twenty Twenty Twenty One! In it I reflected back on a decade of my own blogging, and confessed how two years of surviving through a pandemic-interupted world had, I guess for lack of a better word, eroded my own positive outlook on everything. It was a bit of a final sign-off for the way I had been blogging for the past decade, and an open-mided reluctance to just see where the next year would take us.

If there's one thing the pandemic era of 2020-2022 taught me, it was that people have used it as an excuse for anything. It divided a lot of people's views. Vaccination became a polarising conversation point. Interest rates began an upward trend as spending ballooned at home through online shopping, and now that the price of utilities, groceries and pretty much everything else has gone up on account of inflation, the world hasn't been left in a good place as a result. The gap between the haves and the have-nots has never been more noticeable in my lifetime than it has been heading into this Christmas.

So what has changed for us since last Christmas?

After bidding Caloundra farewell in My Sunshine Coast Finale, and seeing our daughter get married in August, my wife is now settled in her new full-time career in the medical field, and an 18 month long back complaint is now firmly in the rear view mirror. Meanwhile, I've ended the year having just completed my 3rd book in the past six months since relocating back to Brisbane. Being highly productive with my time has become the new driving force of my life, and I'm writing this after having just printed my goals & objectives chart for 2023 to stand alongside my desk. And believe me, there's some big goals there!

Christmas light show at Brisbane City Town Hall, Australia, 2022

And so this is Christmas... along with being the opening lines to a John Lennon song, its also a time to reflect on the good that still exists in the world. I've embraced Christmas this year probably more so than any other year in my life. I think now more than ever, we all need it, and I honestly can't wait for 2022 to end so that I can look back upon only the highlights. It's time for my wife and I to be thankful for all that we have got, for our children, their partners and some nice food and wine waiting to be consumed in epic proportions come Christmas Eve.

Christmas Eve for our family is huge. I think it's the anticipation that it will be Christmas in the morning that makes that sense of excitement reach a crescendo! Nibbles that start in the early afternoon whilst still cooking in the kitchen, and all that preparation for sitting infront of the TV to watch the Melbourne Christmas Carols whilst eating more food, and trying not to drift off into a food coma. It's the best night of the year to be together as family!


This year I've decided to add a new Christmas Eve tradition for our family. Ahead of some big calls I've made for 2023, whilst editing a Christmas Special video for my YouTube channel and my Philden Model Railway blog, I had a real sense of clarity halfway through editing it, that the moment was right to call time on producing anymore content for my model railway channel. So I went all-out in producing a 15 minute Christmas model railway special, complete with over-the-top Dad jokes and a dancing puppet. Why? Because it's Christmas. Now each and every Christmas Eve, Bill the Puppet will play Santa Claus by giving a small Christmas Eve gift to everyone who is present in our household... only after they've watched the above video on YouTube in its entirety.

My Christmas model train video is the culmination of having produced 21 such videos and how-to talks over the course of 2022. I just feel that I have reached the point where I've taken the platform as far as it can be taken, although I still have another two Philden Model Railway books to produce in the first half of 2023. My Christmas Puppet Special however, will be the gift that keeps on giving for years to come, and it is guaranteed to get at least one view each year in our household on Christmas Eve if our guests wish to receive an early Christmas Gift!

So, Merry Christmas everyone! May you not forget the meaning behind this festive season. May 2023 bring some new and exciting challenges to look forward to. And may we never reach a point in time where we have small groups say they are offended by the word Christ, advocate for vegan-friendly ham and turkey, or simply want to no longer celebrate what for many is the only time of the year where families get together and have any real spiritual connection and experience a bond of love. Is that really too much to ask?

Until next year...

Thursday 15 September 2022

My Australian Outback Adventure


Finally, finally, finally... our long-planned trip to outback Australia became a reality. After postponing our trip to Uluru back in April, it turned out that nothing quite beats the chill of the desert air in September. For a first-time visitor to Australia's red centre, the cold mornings and evenings were something that my wife Denise and I weren't expecting. The upside however, was a fresh earthern smell that lingered in your nostrils long after the sun came up. That's me above at sunset however. Just in case you go getting the wrong idea that I'm an early morning drinker!


Nothing beats a desert sunrise. Just look how big the sun looks as it crests the horizon!


For us, the trip to Uluru was one of those once-in-a-lifetime experiences that we initially booked to celebrate our... (or perhaps I should just say my) 50th Birthday, but the first half of the year brought change in the form of study commitments and also saw us relocating back to Brisbane. A busy year called for the trip to be postponed until after our daughter's wedding in August. After flying into Ayers Rock International Airport for a 5 night stay at the wonderful Ayers Rock Resort, we were actually closer to our 30th Wedding Anniversary than our birthdays! So the trip became a celebration of both.


Sunrise at Uluru (formerly called Ayers Rock). It's one of those places you just have to see in person.


Being a special occasion holiday, there was no roughing-it or self-drive car rental. We wanted everything taken care of from the moment we touched down. So our first morning, and first true view of Uluru, was on a pre-dawn AAT Kings coach tour for a sunrise coffee and bickies at the viewing area they call Talinguru Nyakunytjaku (talin-guru nuh-kun-ja-koo). I tried to practise pronouncing every Aboriginal word we encountered, but the easiest and most lovely word I picked up was palya (pahl-ya) meaning 'hello, welcome, all is well.' It was spelt out in giant letters at the resort, and apart from making a must-get photo opportunity for the tourists, it's a word I'll now associate with Central Australia in much the same way that you immediately picture Hawaii when you hear Aloha.


But there's no palm trees out in Yulara, (the nearest and only town in the vicinity of Uluru), just a lot of spinifex grass and struggling Desert Oak (wrongly named for they're actually trees from the Acacia family), and surprisingly not a lot of wildlife.


Not far away from 'the rock' is Kata Tjuta, once known as The Olgas. It's really like a scene on Mars!


Next stop on our morning tour was at Kata Tjuta (cat-a joo-ta) where the selfie-stick got another work-out! I'm glad I brought it along, for by now I was getting quite good at making it look like someone else was taking our photos. But with both our kids now grown and married, this was our Mum-and-Dad only, much anticipated coming of life adventure. I'm so glad my troublesome knee held-up to the hour long hike up into Walpa Gorge. If we had made this trip a year ago, I probably would have just sat at the viewing area by the car park rather than experiencing it close up. The ground was rocky, uneven and resembled the surface of Mars. And if you think Uluru is big at 348 metres above sea level, Kata Tjuta is actually 546 metres high, only it doesn't look anything more than a small bumpy ridge when viewed from the distance.


The great thing about experiencing a place as amazing as this, is being able to talk about the highlights over dinner. Which we did each and every night of our stay, whether it was the Pioneer Outback Pub in Yulara, or one of the fine restaurants at Ayers Rock Resort. The resort town of Yulara is spaced out between each of the different accommodations, and a free shuttle bus runs loops of the town every 20 minutes leaving you free to hop from one spot to the next. The night we chose to celebrate our 30th Wedding Anniversary (even though it was a couple of months early), we dined at the Arnguli Grill where we were staying at the Desert Gardens Hotel. Let me just say that I absolutely loved the menu being influenced with Indigenous flavours, from the entree to mains and even dessert. Food has become one of the highlights when we holiday, and both the Arnguli Grill and the adjoining Mangata Bistro at the Desrt Gardens were superb.


Aww! Happy (early) 30th Anniversary babe. Don't we look gorgeous?


Mutitjulu Waterhole at the base of Uluru when filled with water.


Not content with already having pushed my knee to the limit, the next day we took the Uluru shuttle bus tour to the base of the rock, and had them drop us off at the start of the walking track to Mutitjulu Waterhole, (mu-ti-joo-loo). The track at the base of the rock is flat, and the guide said to allow 2 hrs 15 minutes to do the walk from the waterhole to the main visitor car park at Mala on the other side where the bus would meet us 3 hours later. With the base being 10 kilometres around, not only did we walk 1/3 of the way around the base of Uluru to the Mala car park, but still had enough time for me to hobble a little further to Kantju Gorge (can't-ja) to view some of the Aboriginal cave paintings on the way, and still make it back to the meeting point for our shuttle bus before it returned to pick us up.


There are signed areas outlining where photography is prohibited as the path passes by some sacred sites. So although I'm able to share the amazing sight of Mutitjulu Waterhole being full of water, (as it had rained on the day we flew in), let me just say that each twist, turn, crack and line on the rock tells a story to the Aboriginal people. The most recent line added to this ancient story is the two white lines caused from the footprints of tourists who up until 2019 were able to shuffle single file to the top of the rock. Today it is prohibited to climb on the rock, but there are two white lines leading to the top that are clearly visible from a distance, as though white man's arrival has been added to the ongoing story. My knee is such today, that I dread climbing even a flight of stairs. Yet even if my knee was it's 20 year-old self once more, out of respect I wouldn't contemplate climbing the rock. But still, as a poet and writer... those two white lines are resonating inside me. I'm sure that something creative will come from it once the idea has fully grown.


And perhaps the best way to see Uluru.. on a camel safari!


And if two consecutive days of hiking wasn't taxing enough on my knee, climbing up on a camel the next day for a camel safari along with my wife was enough adreneline and adventure for this trip! After seeing how friendly the camel behind us was, Denise opted to ride up front leaving me to enjoy the gastronomical sounds and smell of a very friendly camel who just wanted to get up close to my arm for a pat. The girth of a camel's belly is such that my legs have never felt so wide apart. My knees, hips and butt were all sore the next morning, and I don't know how those early camalier explorers managed to ride these ships of the desert any longer than our 90 minute safari. Still, for me it was one of the absolute highlights of our trip! And I'd do it all again tomorrow if I could. Seeing Uluru from atop a camel in outback Australia? Just amazing!


'Mind if a take a selfie with you mate?' Says the camel, 'no worries. Cheese!'


And although we were booked to dine under the stars on our final night with an experience called the Sounds of Silence, an afternoon thunderstorm had other plans and we ultimately missed out. So I'll show this last photo out of sequence from a night earlier, as it literally became our last sunset on our outback adventure.


The Field of Lights Star Pass. One of the most visually amazing experiences I've seen.


The attraction is called the Field of Lights, and is a visual art installation by a man by the name of Bruce Munro. Just outside of Yulara on private property overlooking Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park, is a solar-powered light installation the size of four football fields containing 50,000 colour changing lights. We pre-booked the popular Star Pass a year before making this trip, and were not disappointed! A coach picks you up from the Hotel reception and takes you to this secret viewing deck atop a sand dune overlooking Uluru. That view in itself is fantastic, sipping wine from an unlimited bar as the sun sets and you watch the colour of the rock darken and fade into the night sky. You almost forget that you've come to see the lights.


Then gradually the grassland in front of you begins to twinkle, as one by one the lights come to life. The sun sets and the field before you turns into a sea of illuminated flowers that change colour in gentle waves. Not only is the sight an incredible contrast to such an ancient landscape, but as last drinks are called at the bar, you get the opportunity to walk down into the field and follow the illuminated path that winds through an immersive work of art. It kind of surprises you with a child-like moment of feeling that the changing colours are actually interacting with you. I liked getting lost in that moment.


And 48 hours later it was over, we were checking out and boarding a coach transfer to an airport that is perhaps the most remote commercial airport in the world. I came to experience an ancient landscape, and left feeling more comfortable with my place in it. Inspired you could say, to be an Australian. The middle of our outback adventure was also the moment we heard that Queen Elizabeth II had passed away. For us it was like two cultures, worlds apart, that in one moment collided. I've come to appreciate the significance of both cultures, and I hope that the future of our country is a fusion of the positive and good in both.


You visit a place like Uluru wanting to come away with a better understand of its' cultural history, and instead come away with it writing a story upon you. It's a beautifully enriching experience. Maybe that's just the writer in me. This is my story. Hope you liked it, till next time...

Monday 8 August 2022

My Sunshine Coast Finale


After fourteen years, six months and twelve days... it seems that my time on the Sunshine Coast is now officially over. The big seachange of 2008 that was supposedly going to herald the makings of a full-time writing career after moving from Brisbane to Caloundra (picture above of one of many glorious sunrises over Caloundra's Happy Valley that have inspired me), has ultimately resulted in my being settled back in Brisbane once more.


Early morning wedding preparations are well underway in the Glasshouse Mountains for the wedding of our daughter Melody to Colin.


The finale for such an amazing milestone, was the recent marriage of our daughter Melody to our newly acquired son-in-law Colin. Walking my daughter down the aisle will be one of those moments that will stay with me forever, and I couldn't have hoped for a better man to be waiting for her at the end of that short but sweet walk. Despite having moved south to Brisbane a little over two months ago, the long-planned wedding in the heart of the Glasshouse Mountains in Queensland's Sunshine Coast Hinterland, was the one lingering emotion that left me still feeling connected to the Coast. Only instead of driving the short distance from the Coast to the Hinterland for the occassion, we rented a house for a weekend that will go down as one of the highlights of my life. Like all weddings however, a year of meticulous planning is over in an afternoon/evening, and before you know it everybody checks out the next morning and goes their separate ways home. It's that word home that I'll get to in a moment.


My love of doing Dad things saw me volunteer to drive them to the airport once the weekend was over, so they could catch their early morning flight for their honeymoon. But as I weaved my way into the passenger drop-off zone at Brisbane Airport, the sky was lit up magnificently in the orange glow of a new dawn, and I remember thinking... that's it. It's over. The wedding, and my life on the Sunshine Coast already felt like yesterday. The weekend was certainly a lot to mull over on that quiet, solitary drive back home... to our apartment in the city.


While life might not always be pineapples and palm trees, the heartwarming part is that our children have both found love and married wonderful partners. Whatever challenges life throws at them, I at least know my daughter Melody, and son Brandon are both equipped to handle it with the amazing people at their side. My job as a Father now seems complete.


Our first brunch by the Brisbane River as empty-nesters... and we spend it planning when we can invite our kids and their partners to join us!


I guess that's what the move back to Brisbane signifies. Our time of raising children, and having watched them grow into adults during the years we lived on the Coast, is now over. Sure there have been some happy tears that have caught me off gaurd these past 48 hours, just as my son's wedding had 18 months earlier, but I'm ready to embrace this new beginning.


In the fourteen years we lived in Caloundra, Denise and I had negotiated the pitfalls of building a large family home, sold said home when it later became a bit too much for us, taught two children how to drive, helped them with their first car and guided them into University study. We then started a small business from scratch, worked alongside each other for over six years and ultimately moved-on after a back injury, depleted business and spiralling rent on the Sunshine Coast sucked the last bit of fun out of living there. We may have left the Coast with less money than when we arrived, but we left all the more richer from it. I'll always have memories from those years of some of the best holidays with our kids that we could ever have wished for. We also got to enjoy having our son Brandon and his wife Riley live with us for the past 3 years while they saved for a place of their own. I'll always be ready to go back to visit them, but its their town now. Our time is over.


Brisbane City by night... looking towards Roma Street Station. It sure has grown in the past 32 years!


Which brings me back to Brisbane, the city to which I first moved almost 32 years ago when I left home as an innocent-eyed young bloke. The things I know now, and the knowledge of where I would have invested if I was young man again, are as useless to me now as a tray of expired meat! However, all these years later I find myself better equipped at recognising the other things in life that matter more than the size of a mortgage. I've also somehow landed in the position of being a full-time writer-come-modeller, thanks largely to having persevered for so long in the face of all of the above. My 18th book release is on its way from the publisher, which in itself is a testament to bouncing around from novelist, to railway adventurer, to poet, photographer and model railway how-to author, purely because it is what I've always wanted to do.


Ready for a new chapter back in Brisbane... almost 32 years after I moved here to be with Denise.


So the challenge is now to recognise this moment for what it is. It's like I've always told my kids; "it's not forever, it's just for now." That applies to the good in life as well as the bad. I'm just so mindful to not be the sort of person who is that hung up about what may have gone wrong in the past, that they don't recognise when the good moments finally arrive. For us, that moment is here, and I just want to be able to enjoy it, and still be productive through it with my time. The same time that I've found so hard to come by in the past. There's going to be more highlights that will follow. More moments that I'm sure I will mull over and ultimately gain an even deeper perspective on this ride called life. For now I'm still basking in the early morning light of that new day, and so glad that love is alive and flourishing in the honeymoon of a new story.