Hornblowers on Fraser Island. Eurong Second Valley close to Ocean Beach.

About Andrew Antcliff

Hornblowers is called Hornblowers because I blow the French Horn for a living. Our local friends decided we needed a name and our neighbour kindly carved the sign. We had a splendid naming ceremony attended by over half of the permanent residents of Second Valley. I first visited Fraser in 1979 and always wanted to return...Having got an education and a couple of jobs I found myself in the lucky situation to hunt for a cheap property and I bought the plot in 1998 with an old timber fishing shack on it. Due to the fact that I am not an Australian Resident I had to undertake to "improve" the property. To cut a long story short the old property was terminally infested with white ants and so to make improvements we had to pull it down and start again. I drew a sketch of the layout I wanted and faxed it to an architect in Noosa who turned it into a plan, contracted a builder and 18 months later we had a house. The challenges of owning a property on Fraser are many. There are no services so power generation was the biggest challenge in the early days. Solar technology has vastly improved over the last 20 years and our system is now pretty robust if treated with respect. Maintenance costs are high because of the travel distances for tradesmen and you can't pop down to Bunnings if something goes wrong. Because of this the only way to be able to keep the house in good condition is for us to offer it as a holiday rental. We have been lucky to have had many fantastic guests some of whom have been coming to Hornblowers for 15 years.

Why Andrew Antcliff chose Eurong

The reasons for guests enjoying Hornblowers are the same as ours: The location is ideal. It is not a huge slog up the beach from the barge landing and driving to Wangoolba Creek or Kingfisher is easy. The house is well placed for access to most of the tourist favourites. Second Valley is quiet with mostly families renting property yet we are a short drive or walk from Eurong resort for the shop, bakery and bars. The house itself still feels pretty modern and we try to keep it updated when funds permit. We couldn't do this at all without our house managers and friends Steve and Lisa who have the ability to juggle many balls up in the air at once and sort out problems as they arise.