Life Changes for a Family of 5 from Queensland
It’s now winter in 2025, and our Family’s Peterborough Story started 5 years ago, in 2020, at the beginning of the Covid epidemic.
My name is Andrew and I’m married to Rhoda, my wife of 18 years, we have 3 children. I’ve led quite an interesting life up to the point of meeting Rhoda in 2007. At that time I was a Commercial Real Estate agent on the Southside of Brisbane and I met Rhoda in the Philippines where she was managing a very busy restaurant and resort in Subic City.
By 2009 Rhoda had moved to Brisbane where we got married in Feb 2010. Soon after we were married an opportunity to move to a small island in the Phillipines called Siargao Island came along. Excited about the chance to ‘live the dream’ we sold our house and made plans to move. By Dec 2010 we were unpacking our bags in a beachfront resort with the famous surf break, Cloud 9, literally at our front gate.
This was our first venture into the business of ‘Accommodation’ and its where we have found ourselves ever since.
We moved back to Australia in 2015 and at the end of 2019 we had sold a business in Brisbane and were planning to take six or 12 months off to travel around Australia with the family. Before the business sold a good friend of 30 years called to catch up and ask about how his Family might go about opening an old motel that they had purchased 10 years prior. They had bought an old run down motel in Peterborough - the only motel in Peterborough. The building had then undergone a major refurbishment and ceased operating as a ‘Motel’, more like a Venue for Hire, or large AirBNB for family groups or corporate getaways.
Long story short… we ended up here in March 2020 and re-opened the motel in October 2020.
5 years later, we are loving life in Peterborough. I’ve started playing a lot of golf, how can you not when one of the best value for money golf courses is a short stroll from the front door. Another new hobby is fly-fishing, again with the Curdies inlet (closer than the golf course away) in on my doorstep, why not I ask? We’ve ventured into the Food & Beverage business which started with a take-away coffee window, then a small take-away food menu, then a dine in breakfast and lunch menu, then dinner service, and finally in November last year we got our Producer’s License approved which means we now have a small batch Distillery onsite. So we are now a fully licensed restaurant now I guess. The support we have received from the community has been fantastic and was the main reason we have decided to stick around despite the questions like “Why on Earth have you moved from Queensland to the winter of Peterborough?”. The answer is we love it, and I’m sure you’ll love it to when you drive down the Great Ocean Road and stop at Peterborough House for a good night’s rest… and maybe a whisky or two.
