About the Retreat … briefly!!

Tumbling Waters Retreat has a long and colourful history; Henry Halloran, who originally owned the property in the 1930s, also owned most of the surrounding land in Stanwell Tops, Otford and Stanwell Park. Henry built the Mineral Pool to attract visitors to the local area so he could eventually subdivide and sell his land. He kept men working throughout the great depression by building stonewalls, love seats and castle-like monuments found around the Stanwell Tops area, ultimately making the area an attractive place to live. An old Kiosk was on site, and the Retreat was a popular camping ground once known as the Pleasure Park.

The water from the Mineral Pool was believed to have unique healing properties, and people came from all around to experience its powers. It was a very popular place to go for a swim. At one time, the water was bottled and sold.

Andrew and I purchased the property on Valentine’s Day in the year 2000. The property was then called The Garden of Peace and was used as a Healing Centre for meditation, yoga, and alternative medicine. However, the business was nonprofitable and did not cover the costs to maintain the land, let alone pay all the associated bills.

The previous and numerous owners who had inherited the site sometimes allowed people to wander onto the property at their leisure. People continued to do this for a very long period of time despite our new ownership and private property signs. In their minds, they felt that they owned the property and we had ‘stolen’ it from them!!

There were all sorts of things happening on site, from pot smoking, meditation, scattering human ashes, and rubbish dumping. Once, we found incense burning on top of a large mound of dirt with a cross saying, "In loving memory of Uncle Poppy." We never found out who Uncle Poppy was, but we feel it was more than the pet dog!!

As many as 80 visitors would visit the site per day, and often, because of our new ownership, they were very aggressive. If they liked one of the plants we recently planted in the garden, they would dig it up and take it home. If we left the door of the old caretakers' area open, they would come inside and help themselves with our food and belongings.

Our property was a dumping ground for rubbish; Car tyres/dogs poo/building materials, old TVs and anything else that saved people from going to the tip.

Andrew and I felt as if we were funding a public picnic area—a ‘free for all’ dumping ground—what a joke it was. We thought if we were nice to these people, they would respect our new ownership. This worked for about 50% of the visitors who came to the site; the others just verbally abused us on a daily basis.

The rotten, dilapidated and rat infested building was on a similar footprint to where the Retreat stands today, we considered renovating the old building but while we were considering it, it collapsed and fell down! Luckily no one got injured.

The locals, a small but very vocal minority, gave us hell when we told them about our plans for the property. We made it onto the front pages of the newspapers and the headlines of TV news. (We became famous, or should I say, infamous!!). We knew every single town planner, councilor and politician in the area.  There were informal planning conferences to court magistrate hearings onsite, everybody had an opinion on what should happen to the property but in the meantime, the bills for funding the property where adding up.

We got the occasional death threat, we were both attacked verbally and physically, lucky I am a fast runner, and Andrew coming from Africa, had a few tricks up his sleeve.  We both developed lots of character and soon learned how to ignore the objectors and play the game of politics.

We spent 12 months full-time on a mission to get our plans for Tumbling Waters Retreat approved. It was pretty frightening that some of our local elected councillors had no business sense or integrity whatsoever….no wonder some were sacked a few years later for corruption.  Thank goodness for Wollongong Council General Manager, the Lord Mayor along with the support from other business owners in the area, as well as Rex Jackson the previous minister for corrective services who all supported us and were all right behind us from the start.   Rex was also the convener of the local neighborhood committee meetings and he was particularly determined to help us get our proposal through Council……he also had spent some  time in jail for corruption!

The objectors misrepresented the Council by distributing letters throughout the community with  the Wollongong City Council Logo on them urging the community to stop our development and attend the local neighborhood committee meetings to object.

The meetings were held monthly on a Tuesday night and were out of control, people were coming from as far as Canberra to object and some admitted they attended the meetings as it was a lot more entertaining than staying at home and watching TV!

On the night that the local neighborhood committee meeting would be voting on our proposal we were really confused as to why there were so many elderly people in wheel chairs and on crutches attending the meeting.  They appeared to be disorientated and confused, Rex Jackson who chaired the meeting organized a bus to get all of the elderly people from the local Nursing Homes to come to the meeting to vote for us so we would win !!!!   the vote was 49 / 50 – what a win for us!!!…

It was a real roller coaster ride, emotionally very draining, but this made victory ever so sweet. We both lost the plot on the odd occasion, but luckily, it wasn’t at the same time.

When consent was granted, Wollongong council imposed 86 stringent conditions of operation to ensure our business would not, and could not grow, employ or attract too many people to the area.  Despite the very limiting and onerous consent conditions, we took our legal council's advice and decided to push on. We felt that if we stuck to our vision, eventually, the council and the objectors would see that what we had in mind would have a positive impact on the area.  At the time, Northern Illawarra had a reputation for having the highest unemployment rate in Australia.

Finally we commenced building in February 2001, all the sandstone was hand-picked from the Bundanoon Quarry, each block weighing about 50 kg. The Retreat was almost completed at the end of 2001, but the Christmas Day 2001 bush fires came and set us back …………We are still not permitted to have the asset protection fire clearance zone around our property as the Royal National Park is our neighbor and so our insurance is outrageously expensive. No insurance company will insure us for longer than 12 months as the risk in their opinion is not worth it so we have to go offshore from time to time to obtain the cover necessary for protecting our business assets.

The Retreat was opened in July 2002, and two months later, Tumbling Waters Retreat was featured on channel nine Getaway by Katriona Rowntree, our son Yaan, was born the next day. The phone did not stop ringing for a couple of years, a new baby and new business to manage all at once, it was a really busy time……I lost the plot regularly.

Tumbling Waters Retreat has been designed for couples, a place to come and relax, take time out, rekindle a romance, indulge in fine cuisine and enjoy the surrounding nature. It has also been designed for boutique weddings……..we host the most beautiful weddings.

The Retreat provides a lot of work for the local community; from massage therapists, stone mason, plumbers, electricians, florists, wait staff, kitchen hands, cleaners, pool service, gardeners, receptionists, Marriage celebrants, photographers, beauty therapist, hair dressers, entertainers, …  it’s amazing how many local people are now associated and earn an income from the Retreat. We also provide lots of jobs for the local  (sometimes previous objectors) teenagers introducing them to gardening, waiting staff and cooking – some have continued these career paths and are now self-employed and very successful.

We sometimes wonder how our now retired, or should I say fired, councillors and the vocal few objectors feel about how they made us fight so hard to build and operate this Retreat. We probably will continue to get the ‘royal salute’, but we will always be grateful for the never-ending supply of dinner table tales they have given us……….and the deep belly laughs we continue to have to this day!!!

Unfortunately, in 2009, we did not take the advice of the Premier of NSW, Morris Iemma, who stayed at Tumbling Waters Retreat. He warned us to ensure the NSW government and the new LEP put Tumbling Waters Retreat into the correct Zoning: Tourism Sp3 … Unfortunately, we were away overseas at the time crucial decisions were made and came back to find our property had been rezoned into what is similar to a National Park!

In 2010 we applied for permission to remove some of the 86 very restrictive, unreasonable and uncompetitive conditions of consent  that prevented our Tumbling Waters Retreat from being economically viable into the future.    At the time the council officers were very much in favor of our application, it was a minor modification to our existing consent and as far as council planners were concerned, we had credibility as people and business operators a very good operational record so there should have been little reason for us not to be granted the modification to our consent.   It meant that the Retreat would be able to host a few more functions a year, operate the Restaurant and Functions simultaneously, employ more staff and Tumbling Waters could continue to operate in a very tough economic environment during the GFC.…………….Unfortunately the vocal minority came out against us in full force once again… jealousy maybe or scorned from the previous battles they came second in??

The application required many reports, including geotechnical, traffic, heritage, drainage, environmental, engineering, acoustic, parking, and every other report possible—bureaucracy gone mad. This minor amendment to our existing DA was costing us a fortune, so we had to engage more Professionals—town Planners and Lawyers—to fight on our behalf. We had IHAP meetings on site, only to be rejected on numerous occasions.

I could not believe that the IHAP members could come and visit the Retreat, see how we operate and how we cannot remain economically viable with so many conditions restricting us from trading, meet the staff we employ, and then reject our proposal.

One of our local councilors that visited the Retreat proudly announced he was interested in promoting local tourism in the area….BUT  …just not this type of tourism business !!!!  MY BLOOD BOILED…..

The icing on the cake, Christmas 2011 we received a fine for $1.1million. yes you are reading correctly, one million one hundred thousand Dollars because Andrew built a kids cubby house at the Retreat without council approval.

My brother sent a copy of the fine to the Daily Telegraph, the next day we were headline news world wide ……………… sky News, channel 9, today tonight, sunrise, channel 7, ABC, SBS and every single radio station – everybody wanted to talk to us about $1.1 million fine for the cubby at Tumbling Waters Retreat. Family from Europe and the UK as well as South Africa called us to say they saw us on TV news – what an International embarrassment to Australia and our local Council!

Everywhere we went, people knew us as the ‘cubby family’. We received discounts on shopping, free cups of coffee, and well over 1,000 emails of support from people with similar battles with councils and the vocal minority.

All that media attention on-site at Tumbling Waters Retreat for the world to see!!!!!. We allocated the advertising budget for that year to our sister accommodation, AMANZI on the Beach in Stanwell Park.

I even had people wanting to book & stay in the cubby!!

Not long after this, our modifications to our existing consent were approved. Funny about that!!! Mind you, the vote was still very close. Primarily, the green people objected …and, of course, our local pro-tourism councillor!!!

We survived the big dry in 2018 / 2019. Fortunately, our property was spared, while many properties on the South Coast were completely decimated.

A Family Business

A family business we never stop working, here we are  trying out our new silk TWR dressing gowns.

Staff training....Yaan started working with my Dad 8 years old.

My Dad attended every wedding, he taught Yaan good old fashion customer service skills.

The village of Stanwell Tops is surrounded by bush. We have implemented a world-class fire defence system. We work closely with our local RFS, who are grateful to have access to our equipment and credit us for preparing our property well in the case of fire.

We sleep soundly at night, knowing that we can navigate the inevitable challenges of living in the bush. Although our insurance premiums are high, we are grateful every year that we receive coverage.

Our Claim to fame.

Married at first sight 2019  The team were told to serve the guests quickly, do not talk or give them too much alcohol ....My Dad did the exact opposite .......we all had so much fun, my  Dad was included in most of the footage on TV !!

We have appeared in The Bachelor, Find my family, Sydney weekender and many  TV adds, media promotions  over the years and married at first sight again in 2025

Our future 

We plan to continue the business so that future generations can enjoy.

Our power bills, land taxes, insurance, council rates, cofood water, staff uncil compliance costs,  have become uncontrollable.

We commenced operating our caretakers' residence as an Airbnb, just like everyone else in the area. This enables us to fund the business.

In 2022, the council brought an issue with our operations to our attention. Guided by council officers, we submitted an application To rectify the situation.

We engaged local private Town Planners and law firms to assist us.

Two years later, we received an email from the Council stating that they were unable to approve our application, and we were advised to withdraw our application and apply for STRA

Our Town Planner reassured us that we would resolve the matter after verbal communications from Council officers.

How wrong she was and how stupid we are!!

We have engaged a top legal firm from Sydney, together with RFS, a planning firm from Nowra and another planning firm from Sydney, as we wait in limbo………