Looking Smart In Tweed

Nifty Knick Knacks are back!

It has been a very long hiatus from sifting through all things nifty and from blogging in general - but that's life - it happens when you least expect it.

While the updates have dried up, the collecting hasn't. While Nifty Knick Knack postings will be a little less frequent than before, there will be at least two updates a week.

One thing which has been lovely is discovering that we have no where near exhausted the supply of Gold Coast souvenirs. There's at least another four in the collection and they'll be profiled over the next few weeks.

This one is the most recent in our collection thanks to a last minute eBay bid.
It's a candy dish with what seems to be a 1930s view looking north-east along Wharf Street across the New South Wales border town of Tweed Heads to its adjoining 'twin', Coolangatta in Queensland.

From the Gold Coast City Council's local studies library is the photograph on which this transfer print is based.



Of course, none of the buildings found in this picture exist any more but that's just par for the course on the Coast.

Here is a Google map reference for that street.

There used to be a Myer store on that street, just on the New South Wales side of the border but that closed down in the late 1970s when Tweed Mall, now Centro Tweed was opened.

That Myer was the only one for 120km and in the days before Pacific Fair Brisbane or Tweed were your only choices for upmarket furniture and household items not quite as upmarket or as old money as David Jones mind, but very flash for a working class family all the same.

My mother bought this in the mid 1970s from that very Myer. Here's some info on it from one of our links, Retro Select.



I don't recall the occasion, except as a child a trip aaalllll the way into NSW was a day-long adventure.

I do remember is being fascinated by fabulous coin operated carousel dappled horse that sat outside the store.

According to the pillar box red coin box was sixpence a ride, even though pounds, shilling and pence had gone a decade earlier.

What a bargain I thought, it used to be sixpence now it's five cents!

Streets Ahead

Did we say that last week was the last of Nick and Nora's porcelain Gold Coast souvenir collection?

Indeed we did.

But fortunately we were mistaken.

Featured here is the definitely the final piece in the collection.

It is a view looking east across what is now Surfers Paradise Boulevard.

See anything that looks familiar?


Here is a larger view of the print on the ash tray.

Right in the centre is the Cafe Cathay that we featured just a few weeks ago.

In that post we included a photo which has some other elements that are visible in this souvenir including the cinema on the left and the clock.

Greener On The Other Side

Today Nick and Nora share the last (for now) of their Gold Coast souvenirs.

The first is a Delphine trio featuring a hand tinted transfer print of Coolangatta's famous Greenmount Guest House.

The second is a glass pin dish featuring a view from Razorback across the Coolangatta-Tweed Heads townships, looking eastward to Greenmount and Pilot Hill.

The photographs are deliberately displayed small here but don't forget to click on the images to view much larger sizes.

Greenmount Guest House, named in 1904, not for its physical location but hometown of the guest house's Irish proprietor, cemented Coolangatta as the premier holiday destination on Queensland's southern coast.

Surviving storms and cyclones, the timber guesthouse, complete with its expanses of timber verandahs went the way of many local landmarks - felled by a developer's bulldozer in 1978 and in its current incarnation has quite a bit of period charm, (of a fashion).

Today's Greenmount Resort is still a popular conference venue.

Forever Young

Amongst the things on loan from Nora's grandmother is this antique pressed and embossed paper photo frame which held a photograph of her father and mother.

It is one of the few keepsakes she has of her mother who died when her only daughter was young. We'll try to find the photo to profile in Nifty Knick Knacks some time in the future

Although in quite solid condition it is, as one might expect, discoloured from almost a century of life and several moves, including a trip from Ireland to the UK and then from the UK to Australia.

Originally it would have been bright white with hand tinted pick and white flowers.

A quick Google search returns nothing on the name of the seller in the bottom right of the frame -

Miniature Art Co
77. Aungier St.
Dublin

On site now - a computer accessories company Back From The Future.

Drive Time

The rains have stopped. For now.

Nick and Nora are planning to take a drive around the Gold Coast Hinterland to see the effects of the tropical low which has crossed the coast in northern New South Wales.

Since we're driving we'll pack a bottle of lime and soda for the journey (we'll save adding the gin until we get home).

One place we will get to see is Canyon Lookout at Springbrook going via the Numinbah Valley.

The last drive Nick and Nora undertook after similar weather conditions turned the normally dry rocky escarpment below the tree line into a spectacular ribbon of waterfalls.

Magnificent.

One can drive to the lookout via the picturesque hamlet of Springbrook which is part of the world renowned Springbrook Plateau. Canyon Lookout views across to at least three waterfalls and has two quite accessible walking trails. One perfect for a short stroll, the other much longer.

At right is the only significant building in the Numinbah district - the ubiquitous small town landmark, one that is uniquely Australian, called the 'School of Arts' Hall which, depending on its need, becomes a town hall, dance and entertainment venue, exhibition centre, school or emergency services HQ.

UPDATE: Nick and Nora have just returned from their Hinterland drive not getting as far as they had hoped.

Energex crews were working to restore electricity and road crews desperately busy clearing landslips and trying to repair washed away roads.

Everything was sodden. Ground that was drought parched and cement hard just few months earlier had so much water that its excess oozed out of the ground with every step. Where it could, water answered the raucous call drawing itself closer to the Nerang Creek.

The creek is generally a genial, bubbly mild-mannered thing, hidden mostly by tall trees, thick shrubs and grasses. Today it was a gang of soccer hooligans pressed shoulder to shoulder to take all of its natural path and then some, cutting an 80 metre swathe in some places. Wholesale bulldozing would have be hardly less devastating.

It was shortly before Natural Bridge, around 1.30pm, when were were turned away. A grizzled and weary looking man wearing his high visibility yellow rain jacket walked up to the car.

You could tell he'd been answering the same question for what seemed like hours. Perhaps it had been.

"So, what's the answer to the question you've undoubtedly been asked for the 72th time this hour?" asked Nicky.

The man smiled wanly.

"Landslips, road washed away, water over the road. You'll have to turn around."

"How long have you been out here?"

"Since six this morning. Yeah, my boss phoned me and I said to him I'm on my weekend off. He said, 'c'mon, it'll only take a couple of hours'. On top of that it's my birthday."

We wished him a happy birthday and asked him if he would like a slice of the cake we had brought for the picnic.

He declined and we turn around.

By the time we'd reached the turn-off up to Springbrook, Main Roads had erected barriers barring any further traffic in.

We ended up at the Canyon Lookout and discovered a sign that we'd passed many times but had never really noticed.

The date at the bottom of the plaque reads:

Queensland Forestry Service
Warrie National Park
Springbrook
Dedicated 11th March 1937

This might give a clue to the date of the pin dish above.


So what was the view like today? Well certainly nothing like you see in the souvenir. You could barely see to the other side of the canyon but as the cloud drifted through you could see several spectacular falls.

As always click on the images for larger versions.

Surf's Up

Nick and Nora were hoping to spend their Christmas-New Year break photographing the Gold Coast's hidden historical gems but the weather has been somewhat cyclonic.

Really.

So instead we return to the city's souvenirs to uncover one of the most picturesque beachside villages in the city - Kirra.

Long famed for its surf, Kirra is just a few hundred metres north of Coolangatta and as its landmarks has two delightful historic buildings still in active use today - the Kirra Beach Hotel - completely unchanged from this picture - and the adjacent Kirra Beach Pavilion.

The first Surf Life Saving carnival was held on the beach in 1928.

There's been a pavilion along with accommodation on the site since the 1920s.


At left is a photograph taken of what appears to be the local surf life saving club members with the pavilion in the background. It's an entirely wooden series of structures the hug the point which sweeps south to Coolangatta. It's difficult to see from the picture but one would imagine the road behind it to be little more than graded gravel or a thin ribbon of tarmac.


Taken from roughly the same location is this beautifully hand coloured and remarkably detailed transfer print looking along the beach. Clearly visible is the club pennant and the iconic lifesaving reels.

The porcelain pin dish is an incongruously stylised maple leaf made in Czechoslovakia.

One cannot be certain what happened to the original building but it's not too much of a stretch to think that it may have succumbed to cyclonic conditions.

The new low-rise Kirra Beach Pavilion was officially opened in 1935.

At left is a sepia transfer on a cup, saucer and plate trio of a view taken from Kirra Hill. The view sweeps north to the seaside villages of Bilinga and Tugun. Don't forget to click on any of these images for a larger view.


At right appears to be the photograph on which the transfer print was based. The new pavilion was finished in the Spanish-inspired stucco that appears to be quite popular at the time. But unlike those Pavilions, Kirra was the biggest and housed not only the amenities but also had room for the surf club and restaurant.


But the new structure and faced its most serious test a year later when a cyclone threatened to wash the building into the sea.

The cyclone that struck in May 1936 may have spared the Kirra Beach Pavilion but it took out the Surf Life Saving Club to the north at Main Beach.

Now the issue isn't too little sand but too much.

Oh well, maybe another cyclone will change that.

Grand Hotel

While much of the Gold Coast shows little sign of its past before 1970, Coolangatta's town centre still has a lot of the charm of 1930s architecture.

The Spanish Mission style seemed to be all the range at that time (not surprising one supposes when one considers the similarity in climate) so when the timber Queenslander-style Hotel Grande (that's Grand with an 'e') had to be rebuilt after a fire in 1931, the archways and stucco walls figured in the architect design.

Apparently one of the finest establishments of its type between Brisbane and Newcastle (no mean feat since it represents a distance of about 700 kilometres), the Hotel Grande had its grand reopening in 1933.

Located across the road from the beach, The Hotel Grande was, according to the above 1954 Courier-Mail Queensland Annual advertisement, under vice-regal patronage - meaning that's where the Queensland Governor took his holidays.

And what's a holiday on the beach without a souvenir? Nick and Nora aren't claiming any vice regal provenance with this ash tray but it is a lovely picture to look at while you're stubbing out your cigarette.

Best of all, The Hotel Grande is still around. Click here for the Google satellite image.

Burleigh Good Times

While Southport, Coolangatta and Surfers Paradise are the three main suburbs which people msot identify with the Gold Coast, the suburb of Burleigh shouldn't fall too far behind.

Located between two headlands, Little Burleigh to the north and Burleigh Headland to the south, the area has been popular with holidaymakers for well over a century.

The large headland also contains a coastal national park and on some of its upper reaches homes with million views established in the 1920s were co-opted into being lookouts for Japanese submarines during World War Two.

The first souvenir pictured is an ashtray whose maker is unknown but it features the stamp of Southport jeweler, VR Birkbeck.

It possibly dates back to 1936 on the basis of this photograph belonging to the New South Wales state library.

Look familiar? (Don't forget to click for a larger view)

As they so often did with souvenir transfer prints, the image was touched up of inconvenient details, in this case the tent city of holidaymakers.

The next souvenir, a Staffordshire porcelain trio features the view more or less looking the other way - at the entrance of the national park looking north along the sweep of coastline which is still popular with swimmers and surfers.

Here's the view from roughly the same location today.

This souvenir is probably late 1950s or 1960s by virtue of the fact that it is captioned 'Overlooking Burleigh Heads, The Gold Coast'.

Although tourism marketers had been using the 'the Gold Coast' since the 1940s. It wasn't officially gazetted as the name of the town until 1958.


The last piece is a small milk jug. Sorry, for some reason the jug just didn't photograph well.

If you want to see what the view is click here. It's the 16th picture down but do take the time to scroll through the rest of the site's very interesting history of Burleigh.

Can't get enough of Burleigh? Can't blame you. It's Nick and Nora's favourite beach.

And if you can't get there in person then CoastalWatch.com is the next best thing.

A Walk Backwards

We love our shopping here on the Gold Coast.

In fact the city boasts one of the highest retail space per capita in the country.

Such a pity they feel compelled totear down perfectly good retail spaces to builder even more retail spaces.

But that is the fate which befell The Walk sometime in the late 1980s. Great period character expunged for bland white facades - it's the story of Surfers Paradise.

The Walk was two streets back from Surfers Paradise beach and about 400 metres north of the iconic Cavill Avenue.

Built in the 1950s, the arcade provided a thoroughfare between what is now Surfers Paradise Boulevard to Orchid Avenue.

Judging by this 1960s image of The Walk, perspex covered, (source: GC Local History Library) Nick and Nora's souvenirs must date from the late 1950s.

See the mural on the building on the right? Go to the link for a clearer view) If memory serves correctly it was a tiled fresco.

Intriguing but what does it mean? It covers everything from Aboriginal dream time paintings, ancient Egypt to the industrial revolution and the space race.

How educational. Weird, but educational.

Where is it now?

Who knows, probably smashed to bits on some landfill somewhere.

Jumbo

Let's play a little word association game.

I say Nigeria...

... You say Internet Scam.

But contrary to popular opinion, defrauding greedy westerners is not this country's leading leading export, however large scale enterprise hasn't nee Nigeria's strong suit.

Take Nigeria Airlines, established in 1958 only lasted until 2001 when safety concerned caused Britain to refuse any further flights from the capital Lagos to London.

Unfortunately, as with many post colonial African countries, Nigeria was rife with dictatorial governments and systemic corruption.

But the matchbook is pretty as is the airline's logo, a variation of the green and white stripe Nigerian flag with a stylised flying elephant.

The image on the back of the book is based on a Yoruba Stone carving.

I Am A Camera

Once upon a time kiddies, the merits of cameras weren't judged on the number of mega pixels it had.

In fact cameras didn't have their own inbuilt storage media.

True story.

So in order to get the photographs you had to put in 'film'.

Photographic film is sheet of plastic (polyester, nitrocellulose or cellulose acetate) coated with an emulsion containing light-sensitive silver halide salts bonded by ... Oh go look it up yourself.

Back in the late 19th Century, someone by the name of Karl Marx came up with a bad idea called 'Communism'.

Marx was a rich man who believed that everyone should be poor by letting other people, 'capitalists', do all the hard work while the proletariate sat on their collectives and...

I digress.

Now where were we? Ah yes,

Some crazy people in the early 20th Century thought that Communism was a good idea and they killed many people to establish the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. The leaders in the USSR thought it was such a good idea that other countries should be Communists whether they wanted to be or not.

Like East Germany for instance and that brings us back to subject of our post today.

The first picture is a 1980 Moscow Olympic Souvenir Zenit SLR bought by Nick as a youngster back in the UK. While the leather straps are well worn, the camera itself is in excellent condition.

Nick used it faithfully up until the late 1980s when he bought a Nikon.

The second is an East German manufactured Beirette bought by Nora from an Op Shop just a couple of years back. Nora paid $5 for it. A current UK eBay auction has a bid of GBP3 on an equivalent model.

The camera is in utterly mint condition. It looks like it has had no more than two rolls of film put through it in its life.

The Beirette is likely to be late 1970s early 1980s based on the full upper case font on its silver face. 1960s versions used a script typeface, the early 1970s used an italic lower case font.

Both cameras now simply do duty as curious artifacts.

According to Camerapedia:

Kamera-Fabrik Woldemar Beier was a German camera factory in Freital near Dresden. It was founded by Woldemar Beier in 1923 and began producing wooden plate cameras. In 1932 Beier introduced its first 35mm camera model. After WWII Beier stayed independent until the East German state took over a big share of the company in 1959.

Yeah, that's the way to run a successful company - give it to the government...

When It's Hot In Brisbane...

Long before Surfers Paradise became the Gold Coast's holiday destination, the southern sea-side town of Coolangatta was the place to see and be seen.

Named for a clipper which ran around in 1842, Coolangatta was quickly settled for its proximity to the Tweed River and its fertile volcanic soil and stayed popular for its temperate climate and lovely swimming beaches.

Coolangatta is the Queensland part of a twin town, the other being Tweed Heads in New South Wales. The two grew up together and the only things that have divided them during all this time have been the 1919 flu pandemic (when State borders were closed), State of Origin (Queensland vs NSW in rugby league) and daylight savings which NSW has and Queensland does not.

Coolangatta was the place to do the Hokey Pokey, learn to surf and find a summer romance. During the 1940s it was also a place for Australian and American troops to enjoy some R&R.

And naturally where there is a holiday spot there are souvenirs. The pin dish on the left shows the main street with the Coolangatta hotel on the right. The hotel is still there, just not exactly in that form.

The cup on the right features the skyline of Coolangatta with St Augustine's Catholic church in the background. Here's a closer view.

And Nick and Nora are delighted to report that the church is still here. See, there are some things about the Gold Coast that stay longer than two minutes.


A variation of the view is found in Frank Hurley's 1950 book on Queensland which undoubtedly created a lot less controversy than this book on Queensland.

The land feature dominating the scene on the cup and the photograph is called Razor Back and it features a lookout that sweeps across the headland.

So popular Coolangatta has been that it was the subject of not one but TWO songs:

The 1920s jazz era, Coolangatta Is The Place For Me, and

The 1953 classic It's Hot In Brisbane But It's Coolangatta.

Both sites have MP3 recordings but at the time linking were unavailable.

Shame isn't it? Complain to your local parliamentarian. Preserving local history properly is a much better way to spend... I don't know, let's say $900,000 than on some third-hand rewrite of Queensland history.

A Rose By Any Other Name

In every city there is one place that always comes up when searching for a wedding reception venue.

On the Gold Coast it's the Tudor Rose.

This glorious anachronistic place was, at the making of this matchbook, in the middle of nowhere between Broadbeach and Mudgeeraba. Now it's in the middle of suburbia.

Judging by the six digit phone number this book dates prior to the 1980s.

Inside is the handwritten annotation: "Flatford" - Constable Flatford Mill.

But it's unlikely that anyone has confused a restaurant/convention venue built in the 1970s in Australia for a 16th century thatched cottage.

Paradise Found

When people talk about a holiday to the Gold Coast, typically they'll mean a holiday to Surfers Paradise.

While Southport is considered to be the city's CBD for residents, Surfers Paradise is very much the tourist capital - as it has been for more than 80 years.

At the centre of Surfers Paradise itself is Cavill Avenue, stretching about a kilometre west from the Nerang River to the Pacific Ocean in the east.

Named for hotelier Jim Cavill, the most prominent feature on the street between 1920 and 1980 was the Surfers Paradise Hotel.

Built in a typical Queenslander style, the hotel eventually came to boast a beer garden, tropical gardens, a zoo and, around the corner of Cavill Ave and the Gold Coast Highway (now Surfers Paradise Boulevard), was the Bird Watchers bar, a place where drinkers kept an eye on the birds of the non-feathered variety.


The souvenirs pictured here were produced after 1937 when this version of the Surfers Paradise Hotel was built, the original having succumbed to fire a year earlier.

Testament to how iconic the hotel had become is evidenced by the range of souvenir types its image adorned, from salt and pepper shakers, pin dishes to porcelain trios.

Interestingly, two of the souvenir items by two different manufacturers feature the same image. The earliest of the souvenirs likely to be the Hudson and Middleton Delphine China pin dish.

The transfer print looks positively photographic in its view westward towards the hotel tower.

And indeed you'd be right. The original image is above right. (Source: Gold Coast Local Studies Library).

The second is the Colclough trio of cup saucer and plate, as you can see the rendering is much cruder and the colours more garish.

Unfortunately the Surfers Paradise hotel no longer exists, it was torn down by developers in the early 1980s to be replaced by a bland, beige non-descript shopping centre and high rise hotel.

Look here to see if you must, but Nick and Nora prefer to remember her as she was.

There's a metaphor to be gleaned of course.

Surfers Paradise and its high rise skyline are a bit like the wealthy 'ladies-who-lunch' that the Gold Coast has in abundance - looks good from a distance but up close, no amount of showy bling and make-up can disguise age and world weariness.

Ah for the days when she may have been gauche but also fresh, youthful and her appeal, genuine.

He Sells Sea Worlds By The Sea Shore

This is a combined Sunday Drive and Monday Matchbook telling the story of Sea World, a Gold Coast international attraction that combines typical theme park sights with serious marine biology.

It is also the story of the Gold Coast combining entrepreneurship as well as some cut-throat business dealings.

The story goes back to 1958 when a young brash businessman Keith Williams turned his water skiing talent into a business on a reach of the Nerang River at the suburb of Cararra. The Surfers Paradise Ski Gardens (in reality located about 10km out of Surfers) became a popular attraction and a television favourite.

In ten years the show had outgrown its location and Williams cast his eye eastwards to the Southport Spit which had just become home to a dolphin show attraction called Marineland.

In 1971 the ski show moved to a purpose built lake and stadium built on the Spit and the two neighbouring attractions became head-to-head rivals one year later as Williams added dolphins and sea lions in direct competition to Marineland.

Marineland didn't survive and Williams transferred Marineland's remaining animals to his Sea World in 1976. Marineland was eventually demolished and the 5-star Sheraton Mirage built in its place.

Funnily enough Sea World has long outgrown the ski show as its main draw card, instead, it is just one of a day's worth of things to see with your entry ticket.

For two generations Sea World has always been there and locals and tourists alike take The Spit for granted forgetting that this peninsula was once a mere flimsy sandy barrier between the Pacific Ocean and Southport.

As a comparison take a look at these last two pictures. The above left is Seaworld in 1976 (Picture from the Gold Coast Local Studies Library) and at right is a contemporary aerial shot.

All The Fun Of The Fair

We're rather spoiled here on the Gold Coast, we have many fine attractions - both natural and man-made - right on our door step.

But back before there were theme parks with thrill rides, people had to wait a whole year for the Show to come to town.

This week Brisbane plays host to its Royal Show and Exhibition, more popularly known as The Ekka. In a time honoured tradition, farmers bring the best of their livestock and produce to town for competition and demonstrating to city kids that milk doesn't just come from a bottle.

Of course that was only part of the fun. There was also sideshow alley with games, rides and carnival treats such as fairy floss, show bags and dagwood dogs (scroll down for pictures and a charming description).

For another group of people The Ekka is just one of a long line of standing appointments. Within two weeks of the show closing, carnival travels south to set up for the Gold Coast Show (this year held on August 30 to September 1).

Founded in 1906, the Southport Show, as it was originally called, attracted visitors who were were already in the region as well as locals who enjoyed the fun of the fair as well as the challenge of competition in everything from agriculture and animal husbandry to needle work and athletics.

This week's Sunday drive is actually a trip back in time to the 1910 Southport Show and select advertisements from the Southport Show souvenir.

(Apologies for the quality it is only a photocopy. The original is held by the Gold Coast Historical Society.)

And with all these people coming to town - they would need somewhere to stay. So how about at the most modern hotel in Southport - the Hotel Cecil on the corner of Nerang and Scarborough Streets built in 1908?


Here's a better image of the hotel (at right).


But as with everything on the Gold Coast nothing stays the same for long. The original Cecil Hotel was destroyed by fire and a more modern Art Deco public house (at left) was built in its place.

That at least stands untouched by time and the developer's bulldozer.

For now.

The Cecil Hotel is for sale (click for a slide show of the site as it stands today).

Woolworths has a long term lease to run the hotel, but as the sales page helpfully notes the area is also zoned for a "40 level height limit and 1 bed per 13sqm net site area".

While the expression of interest has long expired there has been no word as to whether it has a new owner or whether another local landmark will disappear.