The Islands
p. 55 · Read in the full issue
on the Gold Coast
Over the last nine years or so, Fiji born Tina Cook, wife of Bruce Cook, a Gold Coast (Queensland) business man, has probably felt homesick for her native Levuka. Now, she’s sure she’ll cure that, not by returning home, but by bringing a bit of Fiji to the Gold Coast. Tina (nee Virtue) married her hsuband nine years ago.
Mr Cook and two business associates, one married to a girl from New Britain, are in the throes of building a Polynesian village as a culture centre and tourist attraction on South Stradbroke Island off the Gold Coast. They plan to open this coming Easter but continue to enlarge it with sections representing all the Island territories of the South Pacific.
The village itself will cover two acres in the centre of a large area of bushland. Mr Cook is busy recruiting Islanders to people the village and has openings for Maoris, Tongans, Fijians, Cook Islanders, Tahitians and Samoans.
Island dances will be a feature of the display.