Gladstone couple ready to sell fishing lodge for $1.6m

Since the first guests stumbled across their lodge by accident, Mark and Lyn Abel-Lorberg have made countless life-long friends with their visitors.

Mark and Lyn Abel-Lorberg are trying to sell Awoonga Gateway Lodge. Picture: Mike Richards GLA210717AWLA

SINCE the first guests stumbled across their lodge by accident, Mark and Lyn Abel-Lorberg have made countless life-long friends with their visitors.

It's one of the reasons it'll be hard, when the day comes, to walk away from their Awoonga Gateway Lodge.

The property, which has been their home since 2002, is on the market for $1.6 million.

From the first applications to the former Calliope Shire Council in 2004, it took 18 months before the first cabin was built.

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Since then, Awoonga Gateway Lodge has become their proud life work.

The Gladstone couple even turned down an offer by a company involved in one of the three Curtis Island LNG plants to take over the lodge for three years, for its workers.

"We could've taken the cash, walked away, and it wouldn't even matter right now if it sold," Lyn said.

"But we wanted to keep our regular tourists here."

Awoonga Gateway Lodge

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Looking to fulfill their dream of owning a "fishing village", they travelled from Mackay to the New South Wales coast searching for the perfect business to buy.

But nothing was quite like what they created at Awoonga Gateway Lodge.

"We realised we already had the property, and we were in the perfect spot," Lyn said.

"As a couple with children and grandchildren of our own, we wanted a place where you could sit back on the porch with a glass of wine, watch the kids in the pool without stressing about bars, shops or cars."

Now they attract visitors who stay every year for up to five months and Lyn said most of their visitors become more like family.

Later this year, the Gladstone grandparents will travel to Ballarat to visit their first guests.

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The group of 40 people, ready for a family reunion, stumbled across Mark and Lyn's lodge after the caravan park they planned to stay in had double booked.

"We had no gardens, no grounds, we had nothing, we had to call the council to get the power turned on early so they had a place to stay," Lyn said.

"They ended up helping us fill the trenches, and with some gardening and then the next year they came back and laid some concrete and they even helped build the laundry.

"When they came here they had two teenage children, now, about two weeks ago their daughter got married."

Both in their 60s, and Mark hoping to soon retire from his job at Aurizon, Lyn said they wanted to find a similar lodge where they could stay and enjoy.

"We want to be on the receiving end of something like this... That'd be nice," she said.

Ray White Tannum Sands' Cheryl Kurtz said she has had "a few calls" but no genuine offers for the 231 Awoonga Dam Rd property.

Originally published as Gladstone couple ready to sell fishing lodge for $1.6m