From little things . . .

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This was published 16 years ago

From little things . . .

Turning a personal passion such as beer drinking or art into a thriving tourist attraction can grow from one simple idea, writes Perrie Croshaw.

Take an Australian icon and think up a tourism-related business that uses it to its maximum potential. Voila, the Sydney HarbourBridge Climb, a multi-award-winning operation started by Paul Cave in 1998.

Just four years later its one millionth customer rose up over the arch of the Coathanger to sit atop one of the most famous bridges in the world, gazing down onto one of the most famous harbours and most famous opera houses.

BridgeClimb's founder and chairman, Cave says the best ideas are often deceptively simple.

"Our product is, simply, the BridgeClimb experience. Climb leaders guide groups of 12 participants along catwalks, up ladders and over the arch to the Sydney Harbour Bridge summit, where climbers enjoy stunning 360-degree views of one of the world's finest harbours."

The experience has broken more than just visitor records. It received an award for best new tourism product from the Australian Tourism Exchange in September 1998, before it had actually opened.

It has gone on to win more than 30 awards, from Entrepreneur of the Year for Cave in 2001, to export awards every year since its inception.

Another business entrepreneur who captured a simple idea and took it to the next level is Kelli Ryan, who last year started the Boolarng Nangamai Aboriginal Art & Culture Studio in Gerringong, on the south coast of NSW.

While many people were full of talk about reconciliation and building relationships between indigenous and non-indigenous Australians, Ryan literally became a builder of bridges between the two communities.

While teaching photography, drawing and aboriginal art history at West Wollongong TAFE over 13 years, Ryan (as course co-ordinator for the Aboriginal unit) met and befriended a group of indigenous artists who in August of this year graduated with an advanced diploma of visual arts from TAFE - the first Aboriginal group in NSW to achieve these qualifications.

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Sadly, Ryan's mum passed away last year, but left her with a small inheritance which she used to buy some land near the railway station at Gerringong. She became a builder (following in her dad's footsteps) and employed a group of eight indigenous artists to help her build a studio to showcase their works and run workshops to bring the community and the artists together.

Artist Russell Ping welded handrails, Phyllis Stewart painted them, Anthony Moore did a wall out the front and Noel Lonesborough created the garden filled with plants for weaving and bush tucker.

"I recognised a big gap in getting white and Aboriginal communities together to share ideas and experience," Ryan says. "I felt I fitted well with the Aboriginal community as the values my parents gave me were akin and aligned with Aboriginal values.

"But I understood that there were many white people who didn't know how to enter into a conversation or relationships with Aboriginal people, worried they might use the wrong protocols.

"Also, I recognised that there were many skills and talents in danger of being lost and fragmented - Sydney's coastal communities have been fractured since Cook's landing."

Oral stories about making spears from the grass tree - the good glue from the tree is used for plastering on heads of spears - were in danger of being lost, along with the art of weaving. Ryan set about helping create an environment where these arts could be revived and sustained.

The artists organise classes either at the studio or in schools for Aboriginal and white children and give workshops for locals or tourists. A group of 60 international students from the University of Wollongong joined the nine artists for a cultural experience, which included a kangaroo and emu barbecue at Seven Mile Beach, Gerroa, and a performance from Aboriginal dance troupe Wadi Wadi mixed dance troupe.

This kind of experience can be facilitated any time with an advanced booking.

Beer is the "simple idea" that entrepreneur Michael Bolt latched onto to build his business, which increasingly has a tourism focus.

Bolt owns the largest micro brewery in Australia, the Five Islands Brewery, situated behind the WIN Entertainment Centre, facing the Pacific Ocean in Wollongong.

"I see tourism as being like the thumb on our hand - it's a vital component, another strand of our business."

As a tourism destination, Wollongong has a great advantage over other areas, Bolt says. It's "a smidgin over one hour from the central Sydney CBD", he says, and with the opening of the Grand Pacific Drive in December last year, self-drive tourists can wind their way through the Royal National Park, across the staggering Sea Cliff Bridge, through the northern Wollongong villages, to arrive at his beer tasting room.

At the end of this year, Bolt plans to open a tasting room to showcase his beers. Not only will visitors be able to see beer memorabilia and a DVD about the beer-making process, but they will be able to sample many of the 10 local brews he has on tap (from a pumpkin beer brewed around Halloween, or summer ginger and peach beers, or Bulli Black, Dapto Draught and Pig Dog Pilsner or Longboard, a Belgian style wheat beer brewed with the late addition of orange peel and coriander) but they will also learn how to pull a beer - one of the great bits of Aussie knowhow we can impart to the rest of the world.

"Hands-on experiences are the ones you remember," says Bolt.

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