A family warmed by New Farm Park

By Haesley Cush

Haesley Cush has been a New Farm local for 20 years, and is Principal at Ray White New Farm.

It’s late Sunday afternoon, it’s August, the sun is dropping quickly and there’s a slight chill in the air. The Brisbane version of chill is probably only just below 20°C. I’ve returned from another afternoon in New Farm Park. It was impromptu, we sent the word out to a few locals and everyone, as always, came to enjoy the park. The kids came down with bikes and balls and played soccer, touch footy, red rover and embarked on other adventures. Someone realised that their daughter hadn’t had a birthday party, she’d had her birthday the week earlier, so we quickly threw together some games and a cake. With the promises of a mystery $5 hidden in between one wrapper, even the big kids sat down to play pass the parcel.

New Farm Park has been with us through every chapter of our married life. It’s been a sporting field, it was where the kids learnt to ride their bikes, it was the setting for one of our first kisses, it played host to my brother’s wedding when he got married at the Powerhouse. On the work front we had our first team photo there when we opened the office in 2005. We hosted our first auction event there and during Covid I ran around it every day to prepare for the ambiguity of the day ahead. Our kids have gone there nearly every afternoon and still today Aleesha (my wife) gathers with other parents and caregivers to sit on the tables in the playground and trade learnings and stories from their parenting journey that week.

It was around 2004 that I had my first magical moment in the park. I had met the girl of my dreams (we worked together at the time) and after work we went for a walk in the park. We crossed the threshold of the gutter to walk on the lush green grass and we strolled hand in hand toward the rose garden. There, standing amongst the roses with the soft perfume of the flowers, we had one of our first, and certainly our most memorable, early kisses. With 3 kids and now 16 years of marriage later, that rose garden certainly did the trick!

It was only a year or two after that, that we started Ray White New Farm. We decided the best setting for our first office photo was to head back to the rose garden to take our first group photo. Starting the business with only six smiling faces, I hoped that the same majestic setting would have the same magical powers. It did the trick again!

I have found so much power and beauty from the park and on reflection it has served me so well. In early 2006 we held our first in-room auction in a space at the top of the Powerhouse. This was the birthplace of our monthly auction event that has consistently served the Brisbane property market and is now held at the Calile Hotel.

With so much connectivity to the park it seemed fitting in 2006, on Christmas Eve, that Aleesha and I would go there for breakfast. We went to Watt Cafe, underneath the Powerhouse. In between flat whites and egg yolks I dropped down on one knee and asked her to marry me. Thankfully she said yes and our new chapter with the park had begun transitioning into place.

As our children were born and started to grow, we found the playground a wonderful venue for daily meetings with other parents and children. We’d all sit at the tables and chat and watch our children play. Caregivers and grandparents would push the next generation on the swings leaving parents to discuss things from how to get them to sleep, what to feed them and figure out how anyone had ever gotten through this without the support of friends and a park.

When Covid hit in 2020 we were living in a rental property right on the park. As you’d remember we were restricted to only one hour outside a day. I recall starting my day very early and would run laps around the park from 5am. I wasn’t the only one. Many locals, all running off the worry and anxiety of this unknown disease, would pound the pavement running the ring-road. An awkward smile or hand gesture, signalling a ‘hello’ at a time where you couldn’t interact with strangers, was a small highlight in a time of limited actions.

Once a week, on one of those hours of outside exercise, I would meet my mum in the park for a walk. It was my favourite Covid lesson. We would meet in the park on a Monday at noon and walk around it and through it. It has so many beautiful and calming features. We would stroll along the river, round the Powerhouse and head back toward the rotunda. We would cross on to the grass where we’d chat about current events or past memories while we paraded past the rose garden toward the city, which sits as a backdrop when walking through the middle of the park. We still do this walk every Monday, it was a Covid gift!

The park now has a relationship with those newer members of our family. Since day dot they’ve been hanging with their best friends every afternoon, running through the fig trees, swinging on the swings, riding their bikes (which they learnt to ride in the park) and competing on the many sporting fields.

Louie & Teddy (my sons) have played soccer for New Farm United. It’s so much fun watching all of the little children, flocking to the soccer fields like seagulls on a chip. They run in herds chasing the ball with supporters on the sideline chatting and cheering.

From soccer to tennis, Vivienne (my daughter) and her brothers lined up each week with a cohort of other students honing their skills playing games like ‘tennis chicken’ with their coaches.

These days our weekends are bookended by two park activities.

It begins with Jan Power’s farmers markets on a Saturday morning. The markets bring a festive feel with runners, strollers and shoppers all nestled under trees or on grass assessing their bounty from the farmers. They crunch or slurp their way through their gourmet breakfast spilling out of brown paper bags and inevitably on to someone’s clothes.

Our weekends are finished with sunsets over the park on Sunday afternoon with one of my favourite New Farm park activities. I love sneaking off the footpath and entering one of the little micro forests. We go on a treasure hunt under the trees searching for sticks and logs for our fireplace at home.

This afternoon on our way home from the park, Teddy and I had an extra-large bag loaded up big time! I’m sitting here now, in front of the fire, being warmed by New Farm park timber. Reflecting here in front of the ‘Bush TV’ I must admit it has been fun to go on a trip down memory lane with a park. It’s been a place that for over 20 years has been as important and supportive as that solid mate that’s stood by you through thick and thin, that friend you can call on anytime and they always rise to the occasion.