No reminder is needed of the Airlie Beach Hotel’s status as a classic coastal pub. The evidence is in the stories of long-time regulars and the casual and welcoming community spirit that it has emanated since it was built in 1968.
But it’s a classic for another reason. On a wall of the hotel is a large, framed photograph taken by one of Australia’s most celebrated photographers the late Rennie Ellis in 1982. It captures a moment: a group – mostly men – in short and thongs, most without shirts, enjoying a beer and a chat. A dog rests on the floor.
The photo, which was exhibited in Bendigo Art Gallery in 2022, is historic only in the sense that it was taken 43 years ago. It’s contemporary in the sense that one of the men photographed, Syd Anderson, is still a regular at the Airlie Beach Hotel.
The photograph became a classic and it’s made Syd something of a local celebrity. “I remember just after the photo was taken a woman said to me ‘You never know that photo might be famous one day’,” he says now.
She was right. “It’s unusual to go there and not have someone ask me to pose in front of the photo,” Syd says. “It’s the ‘before and after’ shot.”
Syd, now 72, was 30 and a fitter and turner building swimming pools when the photo was taken. He started going to the Airlie Beach Hotel in 1979. He remembers it as “a great little place on the water”. “It was the focal point of the town. It was where you were hired, fired and paid. You went to the pub for a beer and the questions would be asked, ‘Any work around?’
“There would be someone needing a fence built or painted or barnacles scraped off a boat.”
The hotel had its share of characters, some of whom were members of R.A.G., a social club called Ruff as Guts. And there was Iris Campbell, Airlie Beach Hotel’s very first barmaid who worked there for 25 years. Iris was famous for wearing a hibiscus flower behind her ear every day.
Ashley Kennedy, bar manager at the Airlie Beach Hotel in the early ‘80s, ran RAG for five or so years. The social club held fund-raising events including sausage sizzles at touch football days. “We were the second-highest fundraiser in the town after the Lions Club,” Ashley says now.
Ashley, who lived in Airlie Beach for 35 years, was there when Rennie Ellis took the famous photo. “But I’m not in it because I was busy running the lounge bar and the beer garden.”
Those days at the hotel were special, he says. “The RAG holds a reunion every five years, the last was in August (2024) at the hotel. Our next one will be 50 years.
“Rennie’s photo said a lot about the importance of the pub in that era in a lot of people’s lives. All those people keep in contact with each other. Every time you visit them or catch up; they talk about the early ‘80s and the friendships that were made back then.”
The hotel was badly flooded in March 2017 when Cyclone Debbie hit the Whitsundays and was closed for two years for renovations. A grand re-opening party was held in May 2019 which attracted 600 people. Syd and Graham “Tarz” Norton – who was also in that classic photo – were the guests of honour.
Since it opened in 1968 the Airlie Beach Hotel has been an integral part of the development of Airlie Beach.
The town evolved from a collection of weekender cottages for Proserpine cane farmers into the gateway to the Whitsunday Islands and the Great Barrier Reef, as well as a resort destination in its own right.
The hotel evolved too. The first stage in 1997 included the construction of a separate building on Shute Harbour Road for the new Mangrove Jacks Café/Bar.
In 2000 the new hotel building was constructed on the Esplanade featuring 60 hotel rooms as well as Capers restaurant and a row of shops.
Today the hotel remains a popular gathering place. “It’s still a focal point but most of the people I knew have disappeared,” says Syd.
But what will never disappear is the hotel’s central role in the Airlie Beach story, and the story of its early regulars.
Every day, as new generations visit, the Airlie Beach Hotel is creating new stories.