The Allawah Story — Its History

In 1996 after many months spent driving down dead end roads and lane ways Peter and Trish purchased a 150 acre parcel of virgin euyclypt woodland, located on an eastern facing mountain range near Tolga on the Atherton Tablelands. The land offered spectacular views, which they considered a perfect location to establish a luxury retreat.

The topography consisted of flat paddocks, granite ridges and deep gullies, which provided habitat and environment to support a wide variety of native flora and fauna. Its elevation of 800 metres (2500 feet) ensures a congenial elevated tropical climate free from the extremes of climate irregularities.

Then followed the process of gaining numerous approvals for the land to be rezoned to “Tourism Special Facilities”. A business plan was developed with the construction planned over 3 stages of development with approval for 10 luxury self- contained lodges for couples. The naming of Allawah Retreat followed, the name meaning aboriginal for “Sit down, stay here and rest a while”, considered appropriate for the nature of the retreat to be developed. Another year was dedicated to the construction of access roads, sinking bores for water, building tanks on sight to store rain water, providing power to the property and the planting of hundreds of native trees.

The overall emphasis of the development was to maximize the unique features of solitude and seclusion in an unspoilt natural environment, while offering all the features expected of luxury retreat accommodation.

The retreat began operation in November 2000 with just Honeygem spa lodge. Trish resigned from Qantas to manage the retreat while Peter continued his employment in Cairns as a pilot.

In 2001 the Moonlight spa lodge was completed, in 2003 Treetops spa lodge was completed and in 2006 Hideway spa lodge was completed.

As the business grew equipment was purchased eg tractors and slashers, ride on mowers, so Peter has his dream fulfilled with the building of his shed and the quad bike was purchased as Trish’s toy- sure beats walking up and down mountains.

In August 2005, Peter resigned his flying job to run the retreat – working 2 jobs became a bit too much.

In October 2003, Allawah Retreat won Tourism Tropical North Queensland’s tourism award for “Hosted Accommodation”. The retreat also won the Hosted accommodation award in 2004.

In June 2004, Allawah Retreat won HMAA tourism award for “Retreat Accommodation” and was a HMAA Finalist in the “Conservation & Eco Tourism” section.

Your Hosts at Allawah Retreat

Peter is a Queenslander and was born in Ipswich but spent most of his schooling years in Maryborough. He then headed off to Brisbane to study architecture at Brisbane University but discovered his love for aviation. So, after several years as an air traffic controller decided to become a pilot.

He flew a variety of aircrafts from DC3s to 737s. But not happy just landing on a normal runway, Peter also has a seaplane licence and did crop dusting… in his younger days!! He has lived up and down the east coast of Australia depending on where the flying jobs took him.

His flying career included 15 years with commercial airlines, 11 years with the Royal Flying Doctors and his last years of aviation flying a Navy aircraft out of Cairns doing laser survey work.

Peter retired from aviation in August 2005 and has now traded an aeroplane for a tractor, ride on mower and a quad bike.

Trish is a country girl born in South East Gippsland, Victoria and was brought up on a farm so is accustomed to open spaces and country life.

Trish, like Peter, also spent most of her working career in the airlines system as a flight attendant (then referred to as an air hostess) joining the airlines at 20 which offered the opportunity to travel and see Australia - a life quite different to that on the farm. Trish took the opportunity to transfer ports so was based in all ports along the east coast of Australia.

A move to Madang, PNG in the late 1970s was a change in pace and lifestyle but a great life experience to live in such a beautiful environment surrounded by unspoilt tropical islands.

Trish’s career included marketing and hospitality in between jobs with a variety of airlines, with the last position working for Qantas at Cairns International Airport.