New faces at one of Gympie's oldest vet clinics

THERE has been a changing of the guard at one of Gympie’s oldest vet practices, Bent St Vets.

Bent Street Vets is now owned by Hannah and Geoff Collyer, pictured with their children Emily, James and Kaitlyn and a patient called Emmy. Picture: Tanya Easterby

THERE has been a changing of the guard at one of Gympie's oldest vet practices, Bent St Vets.

Popular local vet Phil Waugh recently retired and sold his beloved business to former Gympie vet Geoff Collyer and his wife Hannah.

The duo will run the "companion animal" practice together with, no doubt, a little help from their children Kaitlyn, James and Emily.

Hannah is the only daughter of well-known Gympie couple Bernard and Ann Dore, attending St Patrick's College before working for some years with QML in Gympie and then marrying Geoff in 2006.

Geoff grew up in Bowen, the son of tomato, corn and capsicum farmers. He moved to Gympie in 1999 to begin work as an associate vet with Gympie District Vet Services, arriving just in time to help evacuate the clinic for the double, record floods of that year.

"It was funny, I hadn't even started work yet and I was catching the little boat across the flooded Mary River," he said this week.

After their wedding in 2006, Geoff and Hannah relocated to Victoria where Geoff took a position doing embryo transfers and IVF in the cattle industry in and around Camperdown. They stayed there for two years before deciding they loved Queensland and missed the climate, beach and family they had in Gympie.

"It was too cold down there," says Hannah.

They returned to Gympie and Geoff commuted to Rockhampton and Mackay, and parts of the Gympie region, continuing his IVF work in the cattle industry.

With a very young and growing family, however, the pair decided to try something more family-friendly as a break from Geoff's constant travelling. He took a job in the mining industry for about 18 months - one week on, one week off - carrying out various vet jobs on stations out west at the same time.

But the situation was still not ideal.

When they learnt Dr Waugh was retiring and selling his business they thought it sounded the perfect answer for their family, and jumped at the chance to buy it.

The one man practice is still staffed by receptionists Stacey Sauer and Teresa Ball, and vet nurse Rebecca Drinkwater, and Hannah does what she can to help out with the administrative side .

"We love living in Gympie and this is where we plan to raise our family. This is our home," Geoff said.

"We are very excited about the future."