The Rock Pool Restaurant

The locals teased us dreadfully about our Rock Pool during construction, calling it ‘the white elephant rock pool’ as we had so many hold ups & delays, taking a full 4 years to complete in total, no one believed it would happen.  And much to everyone’s frustrations, creating the 40-seat open-air restaurant seemed to be following along the same road of delays.

Although we had won our battles with all the objections on a legal front, we had not swayed some of our neighbours into accepting our enterprise graciously.  Eventually though, we had met all problems head on & won our right to operate the restaurant with all the appropriate licenses.

As in all things to do with Frederick’s plans, he was adamant to maintain control of the new enterprise, & most of the winter months went into all the details associated with menu planning & costings of new local produce we wanted to showcase.  Our old friend Silvio, always happy to connect us up with his market gardening relatives & local wine growers proved successful but there were still much that weighed on Frederick’s mind as he stepped through the details.

For one thing, our enormously popular Friday night BBQ’s had to be moved to a new night, as none of us wanted to see the end to this tradition or allow it to be abandoned in the name of our new enterprise. We all felt it was important for The Flamingo family to enjoy time with friends & our resident guests loved the more casual social atmosphere these nights provided as well.

Eventually, after much research, Frederick decided we would hold our BBQ’s on Sunday afternoon instead & in the evening those that wanted to stay on could finish off the evening with a new tradition of watching a movie together which would be projected onto a big ‘roll out‘ screen he planned to hang high up between the gum trees; the idea alone was intriguing & novel enough to get us all excited.  None of us questioned for a moment that Frederick’s ideas would not work, no matter how fantastical it sounded at the time.

Frederick & Jamie had always been enthusiastic collectors & enjoyers of music, they had an enormous collection of vinyl albums in the library & both men were especially proud of the intricate sound system they’d put together with its multiple speakers in the sitting rooms & library.   It seemed the idea of connecting outdoor speakers for our movie nights to be another new project that also had to be worked through dilegently as the winter months went by.

Eventually the big screen that cleverly rolled back into its weather proof box when not in use was sourced & purchased, together with enormous all weather speakers & our garden theatre was pieced together & then hung up high between the gum trees over the top of the pool area.  By day you could enjoy music wafting down from the treetops as you sat by the pool or dined in the restaurant & by night the big screen rolled out for the Sunday night movie, amongst gasps of surprise & pleasure from everyone watching.

I don’t quite remember when the tradition started although each week Jamie would introduce the movie & entertain us all with gossip about the movie stars featured, many of our friends & guests saying this was one of the highlights of the night. Continue Reading