FAMILY-FRIENDLY ESCAPES

FAMILY-FRIENDLY ESCAPES Family

FRIENDLY ESCAPES

Terrigal Pacific Coastal Retreat, Terrigal

You want it all? You’ve got it at the Terrigal Pacific Coastal Retreat. Newly renovated and refurbished, the apartment-style accommodation is sculpted around an idyllic heated pool, a Balinese-roofed open air hot-tub spa to set the holiday mood, and a barbecue and patio dining area. You have a choice of studio and loft apartments, or two-bedroom apartments, all with spacious balconies.

The resort is located across from a range of water activities on Terrigal Lagoon, a children’s playground, and the Marine Discovery Centre. And it’s just a 10-minute walk to Terrigal Beach, boutiques, cafes and bars.

Mention COAST magazine for a 10 per cent discount when you book direct. terrigalpacific.net.au

Avoca Beach Hotel, Avoca Beach

Avoca Beach Hotel is located within six hectares of coastal bushland, a short drive or bike ride from Avoca Beach and the local rockpool, and Avoca Lake. A stroll around the property will have you making friends with the cheeky local brush turkeys, water dragons and birdlife, and it really does provide a sense of ‘getting away from it all’.

There’s a choice of eco-friendly family villas with high-raked ceilings, two-storey terraces next to the tennis courts and barbecue, and deluxe motel-style accommodation with exposed brick features.

The Treetops cafe, with its cycads and palms, and overlooking one of two swimming pools, is ideal for a relaxing breakfast or coffee. The popular Saltwater Bar & Bistro provides laidback dining for lunch and dinner.

Check out the special Family Adventures deals during winter with Australian Reptile Park and Treetops Adventure Park on avocabeachhotel.com.au/specials-1

Avoca Allure, Avoca Beach

Family friendly doesn’t have to mean ‘just for kids’. Here is a holiday accommodation option that will have the grown-ups in your extended family loving the coastal vibe and wanting to make this a regular holiday stay.

There are luxe, thoughtful furnishings throughout, beautiful hardwood timber floors, floor-to-ceiling windows, and a wraparound balcony and patio. There’s indoor or outdoor dining, and a huge family kitchen is sure to impress with its stone benchtops, breakfast bar, and Miele appliances.

Perfect for up to six people, it’s conveniently located so you can walk to everything. Leave the car and head for the beach, Avoca village cafes, cinema, and Avoca Surf Club.

centralcoastholidays.com.au/accommodation/ centralcoastholidays-allure

CHRIS HAYWOOD

From cinema screens to a sea change

WORDS SUZY JARRATT

Recognise the face behind the grey beard and the red beanie? One of Australia’s finest character actors has landed a very different leading role – as the coxswain of a pearling boat. Chris Haywood’s career spans over 50 years; he has made hundreds of films and won scores of awards since migrating from the UK in 1970. But in 2020, the time had come for a sea change.

‘I think Covid smashed the industry at the beginning of last year but, even earlier, work was spasmodic. I’ve got a family again and need a consistent income,’ said 73-year-old Chris, who works at the Broken Bay Pearl Farm in Mooney Mooney. He lives nearby with wife, Aireen, and nine-year-old daughter, Coco, in part of a converted convent in Brooklyn, overlooking the Hawkesbury River.

‘I’m also a rescue boat coxswain,’ he added, ‘so I’m on the river almost every day. I love every minute of it.’

He has always had a desire to be close to water.

‘I once lived in a Harry Seidler-designed apartment on a cliff face at Diamond Bay, in Vaucluse, with 180-degree views of the ocean. Unbelievable.’

And he’s been messing about on boats all his life.

‘I had a 1946 Halvorsen moored in Sydney Harbour, but it was forever getting damaged by unthinking traffic, including ferries. The mooring fees were very expensive, too. I really wanted to keep the family and the boat, and eventually found the perfect place: a former convent with a swimming pool and a large marina.’

It’s a very long way from his first nautical encounters as a young man in the UK.

‘We lived in Great Baddow in Essex, where the Marconi Research Centre had their test aerials for radar. During World War 2, my father was in defence electronics and stayed in that business all his life.

‘During my school holidays, I spent a lot of time on the coast with my uncle. He was in the Fleet Air Arm, which always had stations in faraway places like Haverfordwest in Wales at the tidal limit of the Western Cleddau River, and Lossiemouth in Scotland on the Moray Firth. Miles and miles of remote empty beaches.’

It was all so different from the seaside at Southend, close to the Haywood home, famous for its pier, pebbles and city day-trippers.

‘As a boy, I was a navy cadet and, at 15, went to sea doing frigate fishery protection patrols in the North Sea. That was full-on.’

Chris said he never considered being an actor.

‘I became one just on a whim,’ he admitted.

While working for a wine merchant, a young driver told Chris he’d just been accepted at East 15 Acting School, an innovative drama school that had been created in 1961 by actors to get kids off the streets in Stratford, east London.

‘I thought if that bloke can be an actor, why can’t I?’

He auditioned, was accepted and began learning mime, sword fighting, movement analysis and improvisation. All these skills helped him to develop his craft and become a very accomplished performer. One of his Australian teachers, Richard Wherrett, suggested he move to Sydney.

‘I arrived, as a ‘10-pound pom’, worked on the railways and then drove trucks, in between helping a guy who was building the Nimrod Street Theatre.’ »

Chris finds an Akoya pearl in a just-opened oyster shell.

Chris engaged an agent and soon had parts in TV series such as Certain Women, Homicide and Matlock, as well as on stage in the theatre. He was rarely out of work. His role in Phil Noyce’s 1978 Newsfront was considered by critics to be his major breakthrough.

During this time Chris married actress, Wendy Hughes. They had a daughter, Charlotte, who today is an experimental interdisciplinary artist based in northern NSW.

Unlike many actors, he has never had a desire to work in the United States (although there are any number of Americans appreciating his talents as they view his virtual presentations of Broken Bay Pearls’ tours).

While he says he was never fussed about heading to Hollywood, he has travelled elsewhere, to distant lands as remote as the beaches he visited as a child.

When his second wife, Dr Gillian Deakin, was asked to run an aid agency in Kiribati in the Gilbert Islands, he accompanied her to help care for their two young children, Rose and Felix (both have followed in their mother’s footsteps and are working at the Prince of Wales Hospital).

‘Many areas are primitive, the culture destroyed and the people very poor,’ said Chris, who spent weeks navigating an inter-island trading boat with two native crew.

‘The region is famous for its mariners. The Germans have a merchant navy school there and Kiribati seamen form a large part of the German navy; they’re fantastic sailors.’

Kiribati’s home entertainment presented unusual audience reactions.

‘There’d be occasional film screenings in the long house where the whole village would crowd around one tiny television. They thought everything they viewed was real. They believed Superman was an actual person blessed with extraordinary powers, that Samantha [in Bewitched] was a real witch, and when they met me the morning after seeing me drown in Newsfront they ran away because they thought I was a ghost.’

Decades have passed and Australians still remember this movie, and many others Chris has made. Each time he takes out the pearling boat one or more of the passengers will recognise him.

‘Chris receives heaps of compliments,’ said Jodi Shoobert, the pearl farm’s marketing executive. ‘He’s great talking to the customers, is interested in everything and is constantly coming up with ideas for the farm.’

‘You can draw parallels between working in film and theatre and skippering a pearling boat,’ mused Chris. ‘I go out and deliver a 50-minute explanation of the history of the area and I talk about the oysters. Not just our Akoya pearl oysters, but Sydney rocks, Pacific oysters, Angasis – all of which used to grow here – and I go into a detailed explanation about how to grow pearls.

‘I write and research all my own stuff so, in essence, I have my own live show on a boat that I vary to fit the people on board.

‘Also, the water is always changing. Sometimes there could be a two-metre swell with significant winds and you have to decide which areas are going to be calmer on the day.

‘That’s like working on location.’

And what is his response to those keen to pursue a career in theatre or television?

‘To all those people, young and old, on the Central Coast, if you have a desire to be an actor don’t forget that your life is your palette. The more things you can do physically and understand intellectually the greater asset you will be to the industry.’

LEFT Pearl farm visitors get to hear how pearl oysters grow from tiny spats to mature, pearl-growing oysters in the pristine waters of Broken Bay and the Hawkesbury River.

pearlsofaustralia.com.au