By PHIL JARRATT
WE all have places in the heart – those special villages, towns, surf spots, parks, hotels or even bars to which too many visits are never enough.
For us, the white-washed Spanish Mediterranean village of Cadaques is one, the island of Nusa Lembongan is another. And if we didn’t live here, Noosa would be right up there too.
But when you fall in love with a town, there is usually a place within that place that lives in your memories forever. In Cadaques, for example, it is unquestionably a backstreet family restaurant called Casa Anita. For more than a quarter of a million travellers from around the world over the past 20 years, the place within Noosa is Halse Lodge.
I can recall noticing the attractive old building, partly hidden by trees up the hill from Noosa Drive, when we first came to live in Noosa more than 25 years ago. Being told that it was run as a retreat for members of the Anglican Church, we remarked: “Oh, what a waste!” No offence, all you Anglicans out there, but Noosa solicitor Drew Pearson felt the same way when, 20 years ago this week, he said goodbye to the law, whipped off his tie and took out a 25-year lease on the grand old 1880s guest house.
Drew, then a partner in the firm that still bears his name, Sykes Pearson Miller, hadn’t always been a mild-mannered solicitor. He recalls: “In the early ’70s I was a backpacker and travelled overland from Australian to London, and that experience never left me. I came back and worked as a lawyer for 20 years or so, but ultimately I thought that running a backpacker establishment where that lifestyle came to me rather than me go looking for it, would be a wonderful experience, and so it has proven.”
Built in the early 1880s by the extraordinary Walter Hay, the place he named “Bay View” was initially used as a rest stop for timbercutters working upriver, but it soon became popular with hardy tourists from Brisbane or the Gympie goldfields, who made use of the trail Hay had blazed to Tewantin from Gympie. It remained the only lodging in town until Laguna House was built on what is now Hastings Street in the year of Hay’s death. The Hay family also ran “The Shanty”, Noosa’s first shop and soda fountain, and the “dressing boxes” at Main Beach.
Hay arrived in Sydney by clipper from the Old Country with his brother and parents when he was just five in 1838, but before he was out of his teens he had become a squatter and grazier in the Maryborough area, and subsequently a ferryman, lighthouse keeper, explorer and landholder around Noosa. While an obituary in the Gympie Times noted that buying up land in Noosa was one of the few mistakes he had made in his career, such was not the case for future generations.
During the years of the Great War and through the 1920s and ’30s, Bay View was substantially rebuilt and changed its name (to Hillcrest Guest House) and owners many times over, until 1959 when it was acquired by the Anglican Church and renamed after Archbishop Halse of Brisbane.
Under church management, Halse Lodge became a forgotten treasure, but all that changed when Drew Pearson, wife Pene and daughters Kate and Lucy took up the lease in 1996.
Says Drew: “Primarily it had been used for school camps and church retreats, but it was vacant a lot of the time and we thought it would be ideal as a backpacker hostel. It was quiet when we started but we soon became involved in the industry, obtained a restaurant licence and started to attract the locals market too. We built up an international clientele quite quickly.
“There were a couple of backpacker hostels here already, but when we started to court the international market, things took off for Noosa as a backpacker destination.”
Converting a staid guesthouse into a stylish backpacker hostel took a lot of hard work.
Says Drew: “I wouldn’t say the place was rundown, but it needed a lot of love. We got rid of most of the furnishings, changed the beds, we built onto the existing buildings and refurbished other parts, turned a school hall into a kitchen. We expanded the bed count from 69 to over 100 in the first year, and we’ve had more than 90 per cent occupancy pretty much ever since.”
Pearson is quick to credit his family and hard-working managers Jess and Sarah with Halse Lodge’s ongoing success, somewhat downplaying the fact that the hostel (and Noosa for that matter) would not have become such an internationally renowned backpacker destination had he not put so much energy into promoting the industry.
As secretary of the backpacker industry association, Adventure Queensland, for the past 16 years, and as a board member of Tourism Noosa, he is a tireless advocate for backpackers.
He jokes: “Dealing with international backpackers is a bit like herding cats. They can’t read signs, they can’t follow directions, you have to have extraordinary tolerance some times. But it’s just a joy to be with these smart young people who you know are the future. They give me great confidence that the planet is going to be OK.”
The other aspect of the business that gives Drew great pleasure is the way that Noosa locals have adopted the laidback restaurant and bar as a relaxed place to hang out and meet people from all over the world. It’s true! You can’t beat it for good food and booze at affordable prices, and for catching up with people you haven’t seen in yonks.
If you haven’t been in a while, climb the stairs this week and wish Drew and the team a happy anniversary.
Halse Lodge will sponsor the Halse Lodge Backpackers Challenge at the Laguna Real Estate Noosa Festival of Surfing, March 5 to 12.
