Tasmania Travels - teddy bears & all things nice

February 20, 2016 / Paul McKenzie

Week two of our Tassie adventure was jam-packed. We had a day on the beautiful Bruny Island, played 10 pin bowling with some other bennys, explored more of Hobart and the south-east coast, snuggled up in Snug for a week, met up with old friends holidaying here, saw the latest Star Wars movie, met a bloke battling cancer striving to finish his Huon pine houseboat … yep... some memories we'll take with us to our deathbeds for sure.

It seems we were a little lax at taking photos at Bruny Island, but here's a few of the ferry that we were able to drive the car onto (hot tip: be sure to go to the front of the line to the wheelchair parking spot when you enter the terminal). Oh, and there's a selfie of us at the cheese factory, and one Jess took of a pretty beach where we let Horsey have a swim.

The highlight would have to be the massive lunch at Hotel Bruny - the oysters were MAGNIFICENT! And a close follow-up was the bargains we got from ol' mate at The Green Shed, the islands only second-hand junk shop. Not much more to say... we drove around a bit, stopped at the cheese place, and then the chocolate place, grabbed a coffee and an icecream at the coffee cart place, and then it was time to head back! Lucky for us we got a couple of hours of beautiful weather before it clouded in and started to rain.

Our only hiccup re. wheelchair access during this time was a trip to the Sandfly Market which was held in the town hall - but the wheelchair accessible door was blocked by a bookcase (we were told to make a complaint to the local council) - luckily with some 4WDing I got to a side door so I did manage to get in. Jess found my resulting purchases (below) amusing.

The below images are from our drive around the D'Entrecasteaux Channel - part of the Huon Trail. The drive south from Snug through to Cygnet and back to Snug via an inland road, was on a gorgeous sunny day, and the landscape was a mix of pretty rural scenes, quaint little towns, and sparkling beaches.

We stopped at Peppermint Bay in Woodbridge, a beautiful spot for cuppa with some interesting architecture and garden sculptures.... Eggs & Bacon Bay was a pretty spot but we were hugely disappointed there was nowhere selling a bacon and egg sanga... Cygnet dished up some healthy grub and an inspiring chat with Rob whose quest is to finish his remarkable floating artwork/home.

Still to come.. blog posts on the remainder of ourTasmanian trip including Hobart, Launceston, our friends Boof, Trent, Jamie, and the 20 year post rehab reunion!

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categories / Travel with SCI
tags / Tasmania, Bruny Island, travel, road trip, wheelchair, SCIlife

Tasmania Travels - Week 1

January 31, 2016 / Jess McKenzie

On January 19th about 1.30am in the morning we finally got moving in the Spirit of Tasmania following delays due to the crash a few days earlier... thankfully the crossing was smooth and easy and we were able to sleep in unlike the usual brutal wakeup call. We sailed into a very hazy Devonport thanks to the smoke from the terrible bushfires here at present.

Thankfully we'd booked our accommodation in Triabunna, a small town on the east coast, well away from the fires. We went for a holiday park cabin again – our favourite pick due to the low cost and being fully self-contained in a sociable atmosphere. You can read our review here.

The main reason for the trip to Tassie is to catch up with Trent and Boof who I got to know last year while they were at rehab in Melbourne adjusting to life with an SCI.

Trent is a quad - a similar level to me - who broke his neck when he came off his motorbike last year.

They both have quite tear-jerking stories - even prior to their accidents - and I'm hoping to interview them on the GoPro once I buy a new one after Horsey drowned the last one!

Boof is looking great, he's building up his strength by pushing 5km a day, and has put a halt on his drinking since realising it was damaging his health. We celebrated Australia Day at his place where he had a crew around to cook up some smoked lamb, tuna, and other delicious-ness. He's lucky to have some great mates that are helping him get set up at home.

Trent and his fiancee Amy have moved into a nice new flat of their own, and in general are doing well but are having some teething issues with a few things like specialised services that have very little knowledge or experience of spinal cord injury. We're hoping to do what we can to get them set up a little better.

We're trying to get onto Dave at ParaQuad Tasmania to meet with him and find out what services are available down here, other than the Spinal Fund which provides much needed funding to those requiring equipment and seems to be leagues ahead of what we have in Victoria.

Since arriving we've been to the famous Salamanca Market in Hobart, stumbled across the oldest Catholic Church in the country in Richmond, visited boutique chocolate shops, celebrated Australia Day with some locals with a snag and an icecream, explored the towns and countryside between Triabunna and Hobart... and now we've moved to a little town called Snug, a gorgeous spot south of Hobart.

Stay tuned for pics from our trip this week to the fabulous Bruny Island and although plans to do some sightseeing yesterday with Boof, Trent, and Amy wasn't to be due to the rain (we went bowling instead) we're still hoping to get out there in a couple of days – let's hope the weather treats us well.

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Tasmania Travels - Triabunna Cabin Review

January 28, 2016 / Paul McKenzie

For our first week we stayed at the Triabunna Cabin & Caravan Park on the east coast of Tasmania, about an hours drive from Hobart. It's a lovely quiet quirky little fishing town with everything within walking (or wheeling) distance.

We enjoyed our stay at this small but busy cabin & caravan park. We had the Superior Cabin which is a new one bedroom, wheelchair accessible (level entry) cabin with a roomy lounge / dining area, and full kitchen. It suited our needs well.

The owners were friendly, they introduced themselves upon our arrival and were eager to hear our feedback and to improve things where they could.

Only things that let it down was the shower bench wasn't installed properly and thus didn't fold up as it should - I was concerned I would injure my feet on it while showering - hopefully this will be fixed. Also the bed was a little too high (we usually find them not high enough!) but the feet could've been removed if we'd wanted it lowered, other than that it was a comfortable bed with lots of room (we had it set up as a king bed, but it can be separated into two king singles).

Other notes:

The laundry, main toilet block (for campers), & reception office were not wheelchair accessible.
My companion dog was allowed to stay, but not in the cabin.
The free wi-fi service was very good - much better than the usual camping ground networks.

One of the greatest attractions in Triabunna is the ferry service to Maria Island (pronounced Mariah - like the singer), apparently a beautiful pristine island with great walking tracks - I'll never know as this proved to be yet another ferry service that has a strange definition of wheelchair accessible. This ferry is definitely NOT wheelchair accessible - hopefully thanks to the chat I had with the booking lady, they won't be telling people from now on that it is - there's no way I could make the trip sadly.

Highlights of the town for me was watching the activity on the wharf - there were tonnes and tonnes of squid being bought in while we were there, an archaeological dig that was underway at the old Barracks next to the Spring Bay Hotel, and the friendly locals including John who kept offering us plums off his trees.

Next stop... Snug Bay Cabin & Caravan Park...

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categories / Accommodation, Friends with SCI, Life with SCI
tags / accommodation, Tasmania, wheelchair access, disability, peer support, SCI, spinal cord injury

Barney's Place - Gold Coast

January 25, 2016 / Paul McKenzie

The view from the deck at Barney's Place out to the canal

On November 24th after booking 2 weeks earlier and planning on staying a week in Beaudesert I was faced with the need to find somewhere else to stay (I'm saving that story for a later post!) and I somehow stumbled across this gorgeous house with an odd name - read on for my story of a man trying to bring change in the way we look at disabled accommodation.

I make a call to the manager of an amazing looking holiday house on the Gold Coast called Barney's Place. Jess is skeptical that it'll be available, or affordable, but I give it a go anyway. What have we got to lose? The manager is Tracy and she tells me it's actually booked out for the owner to do maintenance on it... but he could possibly be open to giving us a few nights there... we can't get hold of him so she suggests we head over there to see him. We get back on the road and plot the course for Barney's Place in Mermaid Waters... hey it looks worth a look at the very least.

We turn up to a seemingly ordinary residential street, a very tidy looking property from the front, with level entry from the street, through the garage we can see ramps to doors, OK so far so good. Andre the owner meets us out there and says yes, he's open to booking it out to us for a few nights, he shows us in, we pass by the pool with a seat lift thingie, nice. We come in through the wide front door and our first reaction is WOW... this IS nice... open plan, wooden floorboards, newly renovated, SPA with a lift too! Oh, and I get my own bathroom?! Brilliant! Wet floor, plenty of space, able to get under the basin... full marks from me.

Not only is a beautiful house - that feels homely – it also backs onto one of the canals, and the deck looks out onto sandy beaches and water. I would've loved to get down onto that beach so I could throw the dog a stick, but alas, this was one thing I couldn't do due to a steep flight of stairs to that level.

There is three bedrooms; a single hospital bed if you want it in the smallest bedroom, bunks for the kids, another single electric bed, and a queen bed in the master bedroom looking out over the canal (which is where I slept). Andre was helpful to the point of going to get some elephant feet for the queen bed so it was a better height for me to transfer in and out of my wheelchair. There were also modifications to the kitchen cabinetry to allow the spaces under the kitchen sink and hobs to open up for wheelchair access.

This is not a budget holiday option, but for the extra cost we had all the home comforts including things like; a wheelchair accessible car (if we'd wanted it), a decent BBQ, wireless internet, washing machine and dryer, dishwasher... the list goes on. Jess was impressed with some of the simple things like disinfectant for the bathroom, a vacuum cleaner, and plenty of tea and coffee supplied.

We truly felt at home there and would've loved to stay longer than the five days we had. We really enjoyed our stay and would recommend it to others. I'd only deduct points for lack of footpaths in the area (but the streets are very quiet until you get to the ones with them), far too close to Pacific Fair shopping centre (Jess disappeared for a couple of days), and not being able to get down to the waters edge myself. Probably a little far removed from the main beaches too but still a 9/10 for me.

If you go to the Barney's Place website the owner Andre also runs a business in Thailand called Phuket Access Travel that provides links to reliable accommodation and transportation... if I was interested in a holiday over there I'd be going with him for sure.

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categories / Accommodation
tags / accessibility, accommodation, wheelchair access, holiday, Gold Coast

Byron Bay Rainforest Resort - Time for a Change

January 13, 2016 / Jess McKenzie

We were fortunate enough to stay at the Rainforest Resort on the outskirts in Byron Bay, a complex of 9 small huts amongst remnant coastal rainforest. The remarkable thing about this property - aside from the beautiful setting – is that each hut is wheelchair accessible.

The open air porch of our cabin looking out to dense rainforest

The original concept and initial three huts, an open air cabana and roll-in pool, that were built in 1987 were the result of Phillipa Nickol's vision, initially opening as the 'Wheel Resort'. Phillipa was an amputee herself, and had an awareness of the real lack of accommodation facilities at that time for people with disability. The huts were designed with a “South Sea Island village huts” feel in mind by well-known local architect Christine Vadasz.

In 1991 Catherine Carter – a wheelchair user as a result of a traumatic brain injury - took on a half share of the property, becoming full owners with her husband Murray in 1995. Six more cabins were added over the years, the Cabana was enclosed and improved upon, the paths around the property were paved, and air-conditioning units were added.

Catherine too was passionate about the vision for accessible accommodation, she was an outgoing person who continued to swim and ride horses post injury, although her mobility slowly decreased over the years. Sadly Catherine passed away almost three years ago and her husband Murray has been running the property with the help of the Assistant Manager, his 13 year-old daughter Cinta (an official title she has held since she was seven).

Murray admits the resort gets mixed reviews with many finding his “lack of anal retentiveness” in cleanliness and property maintenance not to their liking. Others, like us, have enjoyed the feeling of staying in a tropical hideaway and feeling like we have our own little oasis.

In his time Murray reckons he's learnt a thing or two about people, finding it interesting that although people will readily complain about many things, one thing that he doesn't hear much of is complaints about guests' dogs (the resort is pet-friendly) despite having a few “mangy mongrels” stay at times.

Since legislation was brought in for new accommodation facilities to need to provide an accessible room/unit the Rainforest Resort has catered less and less to those with disabilities as other resorts have been built in the area, and the majority of their guests are 'regular' travellers, often with dogs. Due to feedback from those 'regulars' they've shied away from installing further disability related features in rooms (such as ceiling hoists) so that the huts don't develop a “institutional feel”.

After almost 25 years, Murray has decided he's had enough of the “warts and all” 24/7 lifestyle of being a live-in resort owner and manager confessing “I'm pretty due for a break... I haven't had a proper holiday in all this time.” The property went to auction at the end of November and the paperwork is being finalised at present in the handover to the new owner.

Murray will be there until the end of January 2016 and then... well he's planning to take that well-earned break, time with Cinta, and may even write a book on climate change.

We are certainly hoping to stay again later this year – we have our fingers crossed the new owners will continue with the resort as it has been run with a relaxed, chilled feel and letting the surrounds speak for themselves – although maybe with a little of a refresh to the rooms and facilities.

Have you stayed here before? Tell us what you thought. Would you be sad for it to be closed down or luxury-ified?

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tags / accommodation, Byron Bay, Australia holiday, wheelchair access, accessibility, travel, road trip