About Us

The original settler, John ‘Tinker’ Campbell created Kooralbyn Valley in the early 1840s, which was then a part of the Tamrookum Run. Since then, The Kooralbyn Valley has become a centerpiece for history and has yielded many different names and purposes.

Kooralbyn Valley was home to Queensland's first poet, James Stephens, where he wrote his first poem ‘Convict Once.’ The property was also brought by William Cochrane Bundock in 1890 for a going rate of 29 shillings per acre. And over the next 43 years, it remained in the family and was developed into grazing land, waiting for its next big change to come. 

Then in 1973, the idea came, the idea to turn this beautiful land into a place that would help people escape their lives. A holiday location that swept people from the city and into paradise. So, two Sydney Knights, Sir Peter Abeles and Sir Arthur George acquired the land with a team of financiers, planners and marketers, all who were determined to make this stunning dream become a blissful reality. 

By 1979 the project was taken over by AGC, a subsidiary of Westpac, who were Australia’s largest financier at the time. And the construction of Kooralbyn Resort was underway. Before shortly being finished and creating Australia’s first integrated Golf Resort. It was the paradise everyone had dreamed of and became a staple within the community and a place loved by tourists. 

However, after running successfully for years and being visited by thousands of guests both nationally and internationally. The resorts current owner, Ray Schofield, was forced to close the resort in 2008 due to his financier, MFS, going into receivership in the wake of the Global Financial Crisis. 

And there the beautiful piece of paradise sat, slowly deteriorating into a ghost town of memories. The hope of the resort being returned to its former glory seemed less likely every year as it stayed untouched and missed immensely by everyone who had once enjoyed it.