He Tāngata: Simone Scoppa
PR Manager: Bookabach
Growing up, our family holidays were all about trips to the beach, usually to our Nan's old cottage. She lived in a fishing village called Yamba, on the far east of New South Wales, an epic eight-hour drive from where we lived. We'd go there twice a year, once in summer and once in winter, and in summer we'd spend four weeks with 30+ cousins, either staying at Nan's or at the holiday house next door. We would literally do the same holiday every single year and I loved it. Yamba is known for prawn fishing and has recently become a hotspot where everyone wants to go but when we used to go, there was just a pub at the top of the hill, the bowling club for dinner and the fish-and-chip shop down the road. The people who bought Nan's place after she passed away list it as a holiday home and we've stayed in it since. But it doesn't have all her things, none of our pictures are on the walls, so it's like being in a vaguely familiar, stranger's home.
Every Easter we used to camp at Lake Conjola, on the south coast of New South Wales. We'd do it in rain, hail or shine. I have memories of my blow-up mattress floating away when the rain came in. I can see now why I don't go camping very often. To this day my brother is a bit of a firebug. He still loves collecting wood to make the ultimate campfire. We recently went on holiday to Kangaroo Valley, and he was the master of the fire pit that weekend. It rekindled all those old memories. We were still roasting marshmallows and singing songs, although now we play YouTube videos instead of singing from memory.
My first job in travel was with Tourism Australia. I started about the same time the movie Australia came out. We knew Australians loved taking overseas trips, but that they didn't always see their own backyard so we were encouraging people to watch the movie then see the country, to visit some of the places Hugh Jackman and Nicole Kidman went, like Kakadu and the Northern Territories.