The PALM LAKE LUXURY RESORT

In February 2023, the Palm Lake company started work to develop the large block of land on the western side of Orion Drive, at the street address now known as 2 Orion Drive.
It wasn't number 2 until Palm Lake started work there....number 2 was the first house further along Orion Drive, just past the existing Palm Lake Resort at 1 Orion Drive. That house had been number 2 ever since it was built, back in the 1990s.

No, it is now 2A, because somehow Palm Lake convinced the Clarence River Council to reallocate the number 2 to their new development, so whoever lives at 2A had to advise all their mail contacts that they'd "moved".
It must be nice to know how to pull strings.

Anyway, the location now known as 2 Orion Drive was where the original developer of the village in which we live had the facility for manufacturing and assembling the homes.
The “shed”, as it became known, sat there until 2019, when it was demolished, the land remaining bare until the site began to be filled and all the pipes, drains and conduits for telephones etc were put in place.

There was a lot of filling being trucked in daily and the height of the land was raised by a couple of metres, as can be seen by the wall in the following photos, and it lifted it well above any possibility of flooding….not that it ever flooded prior to that but under the Council’s new requirements, it had to be raised.

In March 2023 work picked up, with the laying of concrete for the internal roadways and the main entrance was started.
Within a couple of months a fence, complete with advertising, had been installed along the front boundary, a sales office was opened and work began on the Vantage Clubhouse – a structure of humongous size and which we locals dubbed “The Taj Mahal” as it was all white and very ornate.

Apparently the intention behind this luxury development was that there would be 70+ two-story villas constructed, each with an electric lift (elevator) and priced between $1.2 million and $1.7 million. Work would be done in three stages.
The Vantage Clubhouse would be completed, furnished and landscaped first and then used as an attraction for potential buyers. It features a theatre, a bar, a gym, a sauna, a pool and other up-market features designed to lure the wealthy downsizers.

At the time of writing (early December 2024), new construction has virtually stopped; we have learned that only twelve units have been sold; only one occupant has moved in (and that was back in April); the prices have been dropped dramatically; and that whilst Stage 2 will be completed, Stage 3 of the development has been “taken off the plan”, according to reliable sources.

Everyone you speak to about this project - both here in the original resort and also with any towns-people aware of the development - has the same opinion: whoever at the Palm Lake company made the decision to place a luxury resort in this spot needs professional counselling.

If you are of retirement age, why would you buy a two-story home with no external view, a flight of stairs to negotiate if the lift breaks down, in a location exactly the same distance from everywhere as the existing resort across the road at 1 Orion Drive, and pay twice to three times as much?

If any development was to be planned for that site it should have been a nursing home/care establishment.
A simple analysis of the demographics of the surrounding region would show that they have a captive market.

It will be interesting to see what happens as time passes.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Major changes in Orion Drive

(NOTE! To see an image full-size, right-click and choose "Open image in new tab".)

Over the past few months we have seen some significant changes in Orion Drive between Yamba Road and the Palm Lakes Resort.

Perhaps the one that we are happiest about  - and for which we have been waiting over three years - was the construction of a new, double-width, footpath.

For far too long those residents of Palm Lake who find it necessary to use mobility scooters have been placed at risk by having to use the road to go to and from the Yamba Fair shopping centre.

In fact, it was about three years ago that a man was involved in a serious accident which left him with multiple injuries and urgent admittance to Lismore hospital. In addition to that, the need for pedestrians to negotiate tree roots, rocks, potholes, rough road edges and puddles has long been a veritable pain in the backside.......in some cases, quite literally!

So the new footpath was commenced in November 2022 and the works were completed a month or so later.

In addition to the footpath, there has been significant site preparation work ongoing for the past six-to-nine months on the other side of Orion Drive. 

This is the site for the new "prestige" Palm Lakes Resort, a development which has been in the wind for many years and which is now taking shape.

 It has been an eye-opener for those of us completely unfamiliar with the amount of work required on a site before construction of buildings can commence.

Thousands of tonnes of soil have been moved about, the whole area has been raised above any anticipated future flood level and vast quantities of sewer, water and drainage pipes have been laid, along with pipes and ducts for communications cabling.

The most recent work - still underway today - is the construction of what will be the entry into the complex.

Once buildings start to appear I will update this information. It may be some time yet because internal roadworks would have to be done first.

_____________________________________________________

It's Jacaranda Festival time again

Good Lord....it has been ages since I posted anything on this blog.
In fact, I was seriously considering removing it after I had a book printed of selected articles I'd posted over the past 11 years.
However, I decided to leave it on the web, just in case it could offer anything to anyone.

So here I am, adding a new post and it is of a shot I took in Grafton yesterday (27th. October 2021), which I dubbed "Cops & Jacarandas".
I just happened to be taking a pic of the jacaranda trees (it is Grafton's Jacaranda Festival right now) when a Highway Patrol car glided into the viewfinder. I ended up with quite a colourful photo!
If you click on it the photo will enlarge.

The camera used was a DJI Osmo Pocket.....a very nifty little device which incorporates both video and photo capability in 4k and uses a 3-axis gimbal for stability when shooting video footage.
Info available here if you are curious.

COVID-19: TV News Media....take note!!

I, and many, many others, are completely fed up with news-media TV journalists using sensation-laden lines when before the cameras and also adding their hyped, dramatic opinions.

JUST GIVE US THE NEWS, for God's sake, without trying to dramatise it!!

We do NOT need the hyperbole. We just need the facts and have them delivered without your attempts at sensationalism.

Neither do we need cartoony graphics running in the background.

We DO realise the seriousness of the situation and DO NOT need your ridiculous attempts to increase the drama.
So you so-called journos - and those who write your lines - give it a rest and just state the facts.

Over the past month I have become so irritated by the TV news telecasts...all of them, including the ABC. Even SBS has joined the ranks.

(How we miss the days of one person (James Dibble, Brian Henderson, et al) sitting behind a desk and giving us the un-garnished facts and then if warranted, doing a voice over as a video ran to illuminate the story.)

Here we are, in 2020.

Nine months have elapsed since my last blog entry and during that time the new bridge over the Clarence River at Harwood was completed and opened for traffic in time for Christmas 2019.
It was five years ago that we could see signs of work starting on the approaches and then the bridge itself. It's hard to believe that it is finally open.

We drove across it in January when we had to go up to Lismore - it is a long way above the water to the road deck....30 metres, apparently. It certainly feels like it when you're up there!
It's a beautiful structure. Long may it stand.
(The hyperlink above opens a news video in another window).

Lockheed's L-1011 "Tristar"

I was looking through some old slides yesterday and came across the set shown below.

Here is the story behind them:-

Many, many years ago - in May, 1974, to be exact - myself and a good friend of mine happened to be two of a group of aeronautical enthusiasts (he belonged to the Aviation Historical Society of Australia and I was an invitee) who were invited to enjoy a demonstration flight in the All Nippon Airways (ANA) Lockheed L-1011 "Tristar" which was on its delivery flight to Japan.

Lockheed, with the co-operation of ANA, had arranged for the aircraft to be demonstrated to airline representatives from Ansett, TAA and QANTAS....and also the RAAF, as I learned many years later.

We boarded at Sydney's Kingsford Smith airport - adjacent the QANTAS 747 hangar, if memory serves -  on a beautiful morning.

After takeoff (to the south), the flight turned northwards over Wollongong  and then headed north along the coast and turned south somewhere near Gosford.

One of the shots below was taken within the cockpit; I was looking at the throttles and trying to get the pilot's hands into the frame.

The reason for that was that the aircraft was landing itself.

The L-1011 was coming down the approach path, the pilot's hand off the controls (throttles and yokes) and the pilot did not place his hands back on the controls until the aircraft was running along the tarmac.

Amazing technology back then.

This feature was one of the standouts used by Lockheed to promote the aircraft.

No Australian airline bought the Tristar.

It is said that QANTAS held an option but it died when Lockheed cancelled production.

Airlines by that time were being lured by the twin fan-jets being promoted by Airbus and Boeing and the tri-jets - Lockheed's L-1011 and McDonnell Douglas's MD-11 (nee DC-10) - were too expensive to buy and operate.

The following photos were taken with my Praktica 35mm camera and are digitised from the slides.

They will enlarge a bit more when clicked.

 

 

 

 

 

When we left the aircraft on returning to Kingsford Smith, each passenger was handed a memento of the flight, a polyester-resin dome with a Tristar flying over Australia.
I still have mine (slightly chipped on the edge).............

 

Whatever happened to the ANA demo aircraft (Registration JA-8506), I hear you you ask?

Well, it served with ANA until February 1985, when it went to Boeing, of all places!

There it stayed until March 1985....so I would think it was undergoing a "between operators" service.

That month, as N762BE, it commenced operations with Hawaiian Airlines, where it stayed until February 1995, when it came under the ownership of someone or something called "Rich AW Ltd.".

In February 1999 it went to Orient Thai Airlines and in 2002 was in storage at Roswell, New Mexico.

Incidentally, anecdotal evidence shows that pilots who flew the L-1011 during its life with major carriers just loved it....so it must have had a lot going for it.

I think it would have looked great in QANTAS, TAA or Ansett livery.

UPDATE: 1/10/2018
Here are some links to Ron Cuskelly's excellent "The Lockheed File" website.

The site contains an enormous amount of reference material relating to Lockheed aircraft registered in Australia and, in addition, to aircraft with an Australian connection, under the heading "Oddities".

Scroll down to Tristar Australian Demonstration Tour on that page for the start of the L-1011 section, with photos.....including "what ifs" for QANTAS, Trans-Australia Airlines (TAA) and Ansett Airlines.

A week on the Gold Coast

(All photos enlarge to full size when clicked)

This past week has been one of those not quite ordinary run-of-the-mill weeks that we have experienced during our life here in Yamba.

It was certainly as traumatic as the fire (November 2017) and, for my wife, definitely a life-changing experience because she was admitted to hospital for open-heart surgery for the replacement of the aortic valve.

The hospital at which the surgeon operates is the John Flynn private hospital at Tugun, on the Gold Coast and literally a stone's-throw on the Queensland side of the QLD-NSW border.

I stayed in an apartment in the Royal Palm resort tower at Palm Beach, less than 10 minute's drive away along the Gold Coast Highway.

This was a very convenient location due to its proximity to (a) the hospital and (b) a Coles supermarket less than 500 metres away. As you can see in the photo below, this location has plenty of construction underway as older buildings are demolished and new, taller, buildings are constructed. And so the unattractive coastal sprawl continues along the Gold Coast.

The apartment I stayed in is very large (2 bedrooms) and most comfortable....and, when the sliding glass doors to the balconies are closed, also very quiet.

I tended to leave the bedroom door slightly open at night and the sound of the surf less than 50 metres away lulled me to sleep....particularly on the night after the operation was performed and I was able to relax more than I had over the previous few days.

When not visiting my wife in hospital I spent some time taking photos of the Jetstar, Virgin and Tiger Air aircraft on their final approach to runway 14 at the Gold Coast airport, less than 6 kms south of the apartment towers.

An RAAF item joined in the fun one morning.......

The aircraft landing pattern had them doing the crosswind leg off the coast and they would turn onto the final a kilometre or so north of my location and pass by and above the tower as they descended.

The photos above were all taken from the balcony beyond the TV set you can see in the second photo of the apartment itself.

All the above pix were taken in the morning or early afternoon.

Here's one of a Tiger Air unit taken as the sun was setting............

The view from the apartment is superb. I was on the 9th. floor so it would be even more so from, say, the 24th. floor.

Looking southward, towards the Currumbin Creek estuary

The rock formation at Currumbin Alley (popular surfing spot)

Surfer's Paradise 20+ kms north.

A few photos from the Currumbin Creek and Tarrabora Reserve area.........

A bush turkey. Quite used to humans and didn't move away.

This stuff is impenetrable!! A natural barrier to everything except a tank!

I'll close with this photo of the sun rising behind the clouds at about 7:30 AM on my fifth and final morning before coming home, with my wife out of ICU after a successful operation and on the road to recovery.

FOOTNOTE:
Here's a little video of a workman commuting to his job on a construction site........

An Appropriate Quote......

Recently, when reading a novel by John Connolly, I was struck by how a particular sentence perfectly stated how I feel about my lifestyle since moving from Canberra to Yamba four-and-a-quarter years ago.

The words are reproduced below:-

"I knew that to live a life like his - a life almost mundane in the pleasure it derived from small happinesses and the beauty of the familiar, but uncommon in the value it attached to them - was something to be envied."

That is me in a nutshell.

Another great musical evening

In late July we held another enjoyable musical night, this time the theme was "The Beatles", so some classic 60s & 70s hits were trotted out and performed by Margaret (organ), Michele (keyboard) and myself (keyboard). That's us above, from left to right.

Many thanks go to Margaret's helpers on the night, Venette, Graham and Ben, and to all 20+ guests who sang and laughed, and to the wonderful Gina, whose sponge-cake disappeared within a few seconds of it appearing on the table!!

We are now looking forward to the ABBA night next year but before that we will have another Christmas repertoire to practise.

The Bridge - The river is almost spanned.

The following photos were taken two days ago and, unlike the previous sets, were shot in the late afternoon as opposed to early morning.
This was deliberate and was done so that the structure, now with the majority of its girders in place, would be lit by the sun rather than be in shadow.

All photos enlarge to full-size when clicked.

We start with two taken from the southern end of the existing bridge, where the pedestrian steps from the roadway below join the footpath on the bridge itself. The first photo looks south and the second looks north.
Note that the footpath sections are being installed.

 

The next two are looking north and show that the spanning of the Clarence River is nearly complete.
Only a few girders remain to be fitted and, once done, it would be possible to cross the river by walking the full length on the girders, even without the road-base sections in place.

I walked along the highway to a point on the northern side where I could get a decent shot of the arch in order to give an idea of its length and height when compared to the existing crossing.
It really is an enormous structure.

Two shots, below, showing the 'U'-shaped pre-stressed girders.
These are manufactured on-site, in a rather large shed on the northern side of the river, and are installed by a crane using a massive sling.
Note that each girder weighs 161.5 tonnes.
At each span, therefore, there are 646 tonnes in girders alone which those massive columns have to support.
The girders crossing the river can only be lifted into place when the wind-strength is below 6 knots; those on the land approaches could be placed in winds up to 12 knots.

Below, a view of the "Pi" structure which I took back in January.
It looks a bit different now that it is doing its job!

Finally, a view of most of the bridge.
Not long now before the Clarence has a new span across it.

That first day at school....

It is February 1986 and my daughter, five years and two months of age, is in her brand-new uniform and ready to walk across the adjacent school oval and spend her first full day at Monash Primary school.

And at the end of that first school year, there she was (far right, front row), an experienced schoolie, ready for the annual summer holidays before starting her second year in the ACT's education system.

Just looking at those photos makes me feel very creaky, indeed!!