Time has marched on well into 2005. Moya was made redundant by Austar in early September 2004, and Mark's foray into Real Estate via a franchise initially, and then his own business operated from home, have come to nought.
So, the Sunshine State days are over for now, and while we have enjoyed our time, of just under 5 years, on the Gold Coast, we have decided to return to our home in Hurstville, a Sydney suburb. We have sold the house we had in Carrara and moved in late June 2005. Below is a photo I used to market the Carrara home. It sold in a week to a family from Melbourne.
A bit of history. Mark Herron, and his wife Moya Jackson, lived at Boonooro Park, part of the suburb of Carrara, 8 kilometres (or 5 miles for those of you in North America) west of Surfers Paradise, on the Gold Coast, in the state of Queensland, Australia. We purchased our home here in 2001. We moved from our previous home and lifestyle in Hurstville, Sydney, in late August 2000, just prior to the 2000 Sydney Olympic Games. We moved to the Gold Coast when Moya was made a job offer we couldn't refuse.
Mark and Moya have two adult children, a son William, and a daughter, Nikita. Here is a photo, taken in 2001, of our extended family, L to R, Moya, Glenn (Niki's husband), Will, Niki, Mark and Alison (Will's wife).
William and Alison moved up to the Gold Coast in May 2001. Both have found jobs there, and were married in June 2002. As is apparent, they are busy making a new life in the Sunshine State, and are going to make us first time grandparents in January 2006.
Nikita and Glenn are currently living and working in Melbourne. Niki is currently the Tourism Manager for De Bortoli's Yarra Valley winery and Glenn is currently working at a senior level in Corporate Catering with well known Melbourne firm Elizabeth Andrews Catering. They were married up in the Dandenong Ranges, at Poets Lane Sherbrooke, in August 2004.
After completing their chef apprenticeships of 4 years at St George Leagues (Football) Club in Sydney in 1997, Niki and Glenn have travelled the world, living in Cairns, then Canada for 18 months and travelling North America widely, then living and working for over 2 years in Bristol, England before moving back to Melbourne and establishing themselves there in 2003.
Mark and Moya are enjoying life. They both grew up in a small country town called Lismore, in the north of the state of NSW. Somehow they have managed to stay friends throughout school days at Richmond River High School, and their subsequent life together. They are even stayed friends through to the completion of their Master of Business Administration (MBA) degree, at Southern Cross University together, which they received in a ceremony on May 13th, 2000.
Moya worked in an Executive role at Austar Communications, located at Robina on the Gold Coast. The offer of this role was why we moved here initially. However she was made redundant in September 2004, and is now seeking another role in Sydney. Prior to Austar, Moya worked in an executive HR role for the second major Australian telecommunications carrier, Optus, based in North Sydney.
Mark resigned in 1999 from the job he held as a Business Analyst and Data Management specialist, located in the Hurstville branch of the Australian Taxation Office, a national government organisation. After 17 years in one organisation, the personal reinvention options were too limited, and with the completion of our MBAs imminent, other options beckoned.
Since arriving on the Gold Coast, Mark retrained and took out a Real Estate Agent licence. He spent a year with a partner establishing a branch of the Harcourts franchise network. He since sold his share of the business on 1st November 2003 to his partner, to move on to another Real Estate partnership, operated from his home office, which has since come to an amicable end.
Many of Mark and Moya's avocations are changing as we get on in years. Always a keen cook, wine fancier, traveller and general good time Charlie, Mark has reduced the range of people he tries to lead astray to a small group of friends who get together to celebrate just about any occasion. That includes many 50th birthdays in recent times. He loves also to get together with Niki and Glenn to cook, appraise wines and talk travel, property investments and computers, not necessarily in that order.
Moya and Mark were raised in and around Lismore, on the NSW North Coast, just an hour and a half drive south of the Gold Coast, and near some of the best surfing beaches in the country at Byron Bay and Ballina. They have rolling waves, sunshine and fine white sand bred into them, and could both almost swim before they walked. And now prefer to if possible :-) Our links with Lismore are now broken, with Moya's brother Colin passing away suddenly at the age of 56 in February 2005, and Mark's Dad, Fred, also passing away early August 2005.
Vale some absent friends.
Mark headed off in May 2001, for what seems like an annual month of pilgrimage to Connecticut in the USA, to visit his longtime friend John Laggis, known as Demetri on the IRC network Here is a photo of us on Mackinac Island, just off the coast of the upper peninsula of Northern Michigan, where we visited his daughter, Kate.
As a sad postscript to the above happy photograph, John died suddenly on July 18th 2001, some 6 weeks after I returned to Australia. While he had been unwell for quite some time, he was as upbeat and happy as he had been in years, and was making plans to be around for some time yet. His sudden passing caught family and friends out. Vale, my friend, John Laggis.
Also sadly, Mark's friend Mike Stout was diagnosed with advanced on cancer Christmas Eve 2001, and Mike died on the 8th April 2002.
Here is a photo of Mike, with his lady friend Laurie, enjoying dinner at St George Leagues Club in Kogarah Sydney during a visit with us in 1997. Of course the smiling chef in the background is our daughter Niki.
