It was topical some years ago because of the Commonwealth Games, but we have been to the Gold Coast on many occasions and nearly always stayed at the Hilton.
Nearly all of the photos here are taken from floor 13 through to 45, some close to the ocean, others facing north, and west, towards the hinterland.
Below is one of the main beaches, where the typical sun, sand, and surf pretty well sums it up. Been ion the water a few times myself, and it is amazing how warm it can be on some days, and how cold it can be on others.
And a surfer’s paradise it sure is!
At the bottom, the start of the shopping centers and eateries. The is more different types of food there that can be counted on the fingers and toes together.
The beach just to the north, and where the market stalls set up at night.
Further north, through the highrises, and far, far into the distance towards Brisbane.
North, again, looking up Cavill Avenue.
South, showing highrises and the Q Tower.
South, taken from the Q Tower, the coastline to Coolangatta dotted with high rise apartment blocks.
The two towers behind the Grand Chancellor, are the twin towers of the Hilton Hotel.
From the Q Tower, looking towards the canal residential precinct.
Yes, we were looking for whales, no we didn’t see any. The ocean, though, was unusually calm.
Yet another photograph in what is a series pushes the story along
It’s a reminder of a past that I have only seen in old movies, which to me, adds a great deal of importance to the preservation of any material that gives us a sense of what it was like many years ago.
It doesn’t mean that what we see happening because films, like stories, are sometimes based on some fact but the majority of it is fictional padding, adding a picture of how it might have been.
To find out what really happened, it is possible to find archived newspapers and municipal documents going back a long time, quite often the fodder for many history books.
This is how we think the wild west was, at times quite a dangerous place to be. But, in the main, it was probably a lot more mundane, just trying to make a living off the land, battling the vagaries of weather, fighting off all manner of hazards, both predators and humans, or trying to eventually eke out a living after a gold strike brought thousands of would-be prospectors.
Towns came and went, mines came and went, each leaving the ghosts of their people and buildings behind.
As for my story, it’s probably going to be an amalgam of everything I’ve read or seen, but with my own spin.
So, the story so far – Our hero is away on a driving tour and had come to a covered bridge.
The thought that it might be a portal does cross his mind, but not being a believer, crosses it. Then, after a few miles comes across what seems to be a deserted, or ghost, town. But, it’s not deserted, the car’s gone and in its place, a horse.
…
I woke up in unfamiliar surroundings.
I didn’t remember going to sleep, which, for a moment, was a worry.
It was not a bed I was lying on. It was hard, like a wooden plank, and, looking up, the roof was very high above. A cathedral ceiling.
A church?
I dragged myself up into a sitting position and looked around. It is a church. A very old church made completely out of timber. The sort of church one might find in an old town.
“Ah, you’re awake?” A voice came from behind me, the sort I instantly reminded of a priest.
I turned. A man that had the requisite collar and shirt, but not your typical priest.
“Where am I?”
“Church. Fergus thought you’d died of fright. Have to say I thought that too, but Doc reckons you’re tired from a long ride. Where you from?”
I was going to say from New York, but I wasn’t sure what was going on, so I held that thought and just said, “Back east.”
“Running from what?”
Was everyone who landed on their doorstep running from something? At least I wasn’t dressed in a suit, just a flannel shirt, and jeans, with sturdy hiking boots. They were the only item of my apparel that could be out of place in this setting.
“A woman. She picked another man, one I thought was a friend.”
It was as close to the truth I’d get. There was a woman, it was just she didn’t like me as much as I did her. The both of us couldn’t stay, so I quit and left.
“Well, it’s too late to go on, the hotel’s out the door and thirty paces straight ahead. Tommy’s taken your horse to the livery stable.”
My interview was over.
“I’ll see you at the service in the morning.”
Odd, when I walked out the church door, the scene had changed from what I last remembered. At dusk, there were lights and people. Not many, but just enough to give the town an air of reality.
Until I saw two women walk past, in traditional 1860s dresses and bonnets.
This had to be a historical town that went that extra mile for reality. It had to be.
This is Railway Hotel in Gympie, adjacent to the old Gympie station
Just the name Railway Hotel conjured up a lot of interesting connotations. There’s one in almost every rural town that has Railway station, or perhaps a Junction Hotel, a Railway Hotel, or a Terminus Hotel.
And, once upon a time, there were nearly 600 of them, up until the 1920s, ubiquitous hotels build to house the people building the railways, and, then, when they were finished a lot disappeared, but a lot also remained to service the railway station and passengers coming and going.
These days, these old hotels that still exist are anachronisms of a bygone age, rather ornate wooden structures with big rooms and communal bathrooms, bars, saloons, and dining rooms, and only those curious about the past would stay there.
I’ve stayed in a few myself.
But, as for a story, well, the older, the better, because these would have ghosts.
They could also have infamous pasts, like a fire that destroys only part of the hotel, signs of which form part of the character.
A doorway into a now hidden room closed off because of something horrible happening there, could suddenly become a portal, where stepping through takes you back to the time of the event.
In fact, I’m in the mood to write just such a story…
Because despite all the self warnings, and trepidation…
…I crossed that bridge and found this:
Yes, we went back in time, and when I pulled over, and got out of the car the first thing that crossed my mind, I was either in an old gold mining town, or it was a mid way settlement to somewhere else.
Of course, it was deserted.
So, next thought was that this was a ghost town. But, the fact it’s late in the afternoon and everything looks as though it’s locked up, this might also quite easily be a tourist attraction, done for the day.
But, it was off the main road, down a track that led to what I thought might have been a settlement.
I go for a walk and look at some of the buildings. They have been kept in good order, but are showing signs of age, and no sign of modernization.
Does this mean I’ve gone back in time?
“Hey?”
I hear a voice behind me, that of a man, and turn around.
He’s about 80 wearing well-worn clothes and a raggedy beard, wrinkled eyes, and leathery skin. A miner? A cowboy? Someone who lived here, like perhaps the last remaining resident.
“Who are you?” he asks stopping about 20 feet away. He looks annoyed, or maybe that was his perpetual angry face.
“A visitor?”
“From?”
“Back east.”
A knowing look crosses his face. “City slicker eh?”
Language right out of an old Hollywood western. Any minute now I might see John Wayne or a troop of Union soldiers.
“Perhaps.” I had no idea why I used the expression, back east.
“Then you’d better go back. No place for the likes of people like you. The last fellow that came from the city got run out of town.”
Friendly town then. A sideways glance showed movement, and another man alongside one of the buildings, with a rifle, pointed straight at me.
“I guess I’m not welcome. I’m leaving. You might tell that to the man with the gun on me.”
“He knows.”
I turned and walked slowly and steadily back to where I thought I left the car. Instead, there was a saddled horse tied to a fence.
This is countryside somewhere inside the Lamington National Park in Queensland. It was one of those days where the rain come and went…
We were spending a week there, in the middle of nowhere on a working macadamia farm in a cottage, one of four, recuperating from a long exhausting lockdown.
It was not cold, and we were able to sit out of the verandah for most of the day, watching the rain come and pass over on its way up the valley, listing to the gentle pitter-patter of the rain on the roof and nearby leaves.
But as for inspiration:
This would be the ideal setting for a story about life, failed romance, or a couple looking to find what it was they lost.
It could be a story about recovering from a breakdown, or a tragic loss, to be anywhere else but in the middle of dealing with the constant reminders of what they had.
It could be a safe house, and as we all know, safe houses in stories are rarely safe houses, where it is given away by someone inside the program, or the person who it’s assigned to give it away because they can’t do as they’re supposed to; lay low.
Then there’s camping, the great outdoors, for someone who absolutely hates being outdoors, or those who go hunting, and sometimes become the hunted.
Because despite all the self warnings, and trepidation…
…I crossed that bridge and found this:
Yes, we went back in time, and when I pulled over, and got out of the car the first thing that crossed my mind, I was either in an old gold mining town, or it was a mid way settlement to somewhere else.
Of course, it was deserted.
So, next thought was that this was a ghost town. But, the fact it’s late in the afternoon and everything looks as though it’s locked up, this might also quite easily be a tourist attraction, done for the day.
But, it was off the main road, down a track that led to what I thought might have been a settlement.
I go for a walk and look at some of the buildings. They have been kept in good order, but are showing signs of age, and no sign of modernization.
Does this mean I’ve gone back in time?
“Hey?”
I hear a voice behind me, that of a man, and turn around.
He’s about 80 wearing well-worn clothes and a raggedy beard, wrinkled eyes, and leathery skin. A miner? A cowboy? Someone who lived here, like perhaps the last remaining resident.
“Who are you?” he asks stopping about 20 feet away. He looks annoyed, or maybe that was his perpetual angry face.
“A visitor?”
“From?”
“Back east.”
A knowing look crosses his face. “City slicker eh?”
Language right out of an old Hollywood western. Any minute now I might see John Wayne or a troop of Union soldiers.
“Perhaps.” I had no idea why I used the expression, back east.
“Then you’d better go back. No place for the likes of people like you. The last fellow that came from the city got run out of town.”
Friendly town then. A sideways glance showed movement, and another man alongside one of the buildings, with a rifle, pointed straight at me.
“I guess I’m not welcome. I’m leaving. You might tell that to the man with the gun on me.”
“He knows.”
I turned and walked slowly and steadily back to where I thought I left the car. Instead, there was a saddled horse tied to a fence.
This is the moon, unexpectedly observable in the late afternoon.
For me, the moon provided inspiration for an episodic story I have entitled, for now, ‘I always wanted to see the planets’.
It’s about a freighter captain who gets a gig as First Officer on an exploratory starship, who by a series of inexplicable events gets promoted to captain, and has to navigate not only the outer reaches of space, but new species.
But in the back of my mind there is that expression ‘shoot for the moon’, which could mean almost anything.
It could mean going for the unobtainable, whether it be a job, or the partner of your dreams. Failing can be heartbreak. Success might mean you’d be ‘over the moon’.
Them there’s travelling to moon, perhaps the next logical step for regular people, heading off the spend a week on a moon base hotel. I’m not sure what we would see out there in space; Perhaps a UFO?
Fictionalised, a moon base might just be the meeting place for various species, and being the mystery writer I am, what if there was a murder?
Or to be more precise, the homestead at what is now O’Reilly’s vineyard, where there is a pleasant lawn out back running down to the river for picnics, an alpaca farm next door, and the homestead plays host to functions, and wine tastings.
My interest was that we had assumed there was a restaraunt, and we were going to have lunch. There might be one, but not the day we visited, it was just cafe food or a picnic available.
I was more interested in the old homestead, because it was a fine example of the homesteads built in the ‘outback’.
…
Today we are having lunch in the Platypus room, in the O’Reilly’s vineyard farmhouse, which, if you close your eyes and let your imagination run free, could see it as the master bedroom of a homestead.
Certainly the building is old, made completely of timber, inside and out, with the traditional high ceilings to keep the heat at bay.
At one end, a large bay window, which would be ideal to sir and view the outside, past the sweeping verandah. There is a small lawn and a rotunda, but beyond that what might have been extended gardens, is the vineyard.
The homestead is in an ideal position midway between the main road and the river, has the traditional surrounding verandah, and shows signs of being extended on almost all sides.
On the other side of the wide corridor that leads you to the bar, and, coincidentally, down the centre of the house, is a smaller bedroom, also used as a dining room, and ubiquitously named the library.
It may be small but it does have a fireplace. Which the assumed master bedroom does not, but now I’m thinking that room might have been the morning room.
Behind the room we’re in is another bedroom, or perhaps this might be the master, because it does have a fireplace and is quite large. And a name, the Ambassador room. Now it serves as the pick up place for picnic baskets.
There is another room on the opposite side of the corridor called the Drawing Room, but is not open to the public. But, going into the room with the fireplace adjacent to it, you can sell the aroma of pizzas, so it’s probably an extension of the kitchen, and, walking around the outside that side of the house proves it to be case.
After all, they do catering for weddings and need a very large food preparation area which I discovered runs down the whole of that side of the house.
At the end of the corridor I’d the bar and spare space, and running off that and behind that is where there is a large dining area, perhaps prior to COVID, the restaurant.
It’s not hard to imagine that area as a very large entertaining area, either for very large dinner parties, or dancing.
As for the food, it’s either a picnic basket, or pizzas. We chose the latter, not realising the bases were not home made, but bought in.
The toppings however were both plentiful and tasty. It could have been hotter, because it was a cold day, and it was cold in the room.
As for something to do other than taste the wine, and buy a few bottles, you can get up close to the vines, which, at this time of the year gave been pruned back and look quite dead, look at or walk an alpaca, even feed it, or all of them, or go down to the river and see if you can spot a Platypus.
Perhaps next time we’ll have a picnic down by the river.
