The Airlie Beach Festival of Music was another huge success this past weekend with a super huge web site and within that one web site was a 15 page .pdf file of gigs from the three day weekend.
Airlie Beach is on the Whitsundays and its tourist strip is second to none in any of Australia's tourist centre 'shopping strips'. There are a huge variety of tourism experiences that hale from Airlie Beach such as ferries to the various Whitsunday's famous Islands, yachting rentals from one day to a month, snorkelling, tourism shopping ....
The entire main street was full of music. Music was in the air. My wife Delma and I walked the length of Airlie Beach tourism street, and every shop from we passed had the music festival front and centre and the eating places had the music – I'll just say that again!
Having some knowledge of CoolyRocksOn nostalgia festival (Coolangatta, Gold Coast) on the June long weekend where I am privileged to conduct the Sunday morning interdenominational church service with rock'n'roll, all the hallmarks of such a festival were very visible.
There were accommodation deals, the gigs were well advertised, the weekend long 'tickets' to get into venues were cheap enough, and YWAM was well and truly involved. Youth With A Mission gets involved with the music festival as they do with schoolies week and other festivities.
It so happened we had come into Airlie Beach for two completely innocuous reasons. We were visiting the Laguna Qauys Respite cottage some 20 minutes south of Proserpine and the Friday was set aside for driving into town.
We were visiting Steve Payne the proprietor of Leading Edge music shop. His octogenarian parents lives two streets from our home in Tweed Heads NSW. In 2011 Mother's Day we purchased a key board for my wife to play during our visits up here (four times a year) and when the Tweed Heads key board died, next time we visited Steve at his shop, we purchased another key board which he shipped to Tweed Heads for us. Delma was particularly keen to visit Steve and tell him how pleased she was with the key board. Indeed it is.
The second reason is that I usually buy my shoes at Shoe Biz in Proserpine as they have a good selection of shoes and sandals of the style and comfort I enjoy wearing as foot wear. The Prosperine shop did not have the shoes or sandals I was chasing, but a quick phone call illustrated their Airlie Beach store did.
Hence the second reason we were visiting Airlie Beach. I was able to purchase two pairs of shoes and a pair of sandals (all with soft heels as required) and Delma a pair of good-wear sandals. As they say, the price was right!
Resort at Laguna Quays getting an uplift
Meanwhile the Laguna Quays Resort is finally getting its uplift as from March next year. The Mackay Mercury article and noted on Mackay and Whitsunday Channel 7 news on Thursday 5 November had it all for its readers and viewers.
Laguna Quays Resort's new owners Fullshare Industrial Holding Group have confirmed they will ramp up revitalisation work. The first stage development of Laguna includes refurbishing the existing Hotel (the Lodge), Golf Club, upgrading of the existing Golf Course and Beach Club, as well as dredging the Marina.
In 1992, the resort employed 230 people, including 20 greens keepers. Mackay Regional Council Mayor Deirdre Comerford, who met with the managing director Mr Yi Yu in Cairns this week, believed the company's focus on 'health tourism' would ensure its sustainability and highly sought after by Asian tourists.
Laguna Quays 'Respite'
The cottage backs onto the Laguna Quays Resort with a gravel road (officially a Vermon Break) between the two. The Laguna Quays Respite cottage was purchased in 2011 and has since hosted many missionaries seeking respite and recuperation.
The cottage is self contained with three bedrooms, all self contained with bedding, a fully functioning kitchen – guests simply provide their own food – we even have access to a heavily discounted AVIS rental for those fly into Proserpine or Mackay.
There is a double car port size barbecue entertainment which receives a wonderful onshore breeze and a view of the pristine Repulse Bay.
There is a short drive to Midge Point Beach which is a delightfully flat affair for fantastic beach walls and oodles of fishing boats hauled by busy tractors to the water's edge and then stored back up on the wide spacious beach.
A wide range of mission people have visited including missionaries, home missions, school chaplains, pastors, specialist ministers, and the like such as: SIM, CMS, WEC, SU, TEAR, BCS, UCA, YM, Wycliffe, BCA, MAF, AFES, YWAM, CM, ASEF, Global Interaction and independent missions have already enjoyed taking 'timeout'.
Those interested are welcome to contact me timeout@bushorchestra.com 0419 917 713
Dr Mark Tronson is a Baptist minister (retired) who served as the Australian cricket team chaplain for 17 years (2000 ret) and established Life After Cricket in 2001. He was recognised by the Olympic Ministry Medal in 2009 presented by Carl Lewis Olympian of the Century. He mentors young writers and has written 24 books, and enjoys writing. He is married to Delma, with four adult children and grand-children.
Mark Tronson's archive of articles can be viewed at http://www.pressserviceinternational.org/mark-tronson.html