Read: Aspley Little Athletics Club Captain Sophie Porter Named Athlete of the Year

Three years before Bowden Park

Aspley Little Athletics officially opened on 24 January 1981, marking 45 years since its establishment in 2026. Bowden Park became its permanent home on 3 November 1984.

The Geebung site now includes a 400-metre grass running track along with long jump, high jump, discus, shot put and javelin facilities. Equipment is also available for larger carnivals and external bookings.

The name on the oval

Paul O’Brien became involved with Aspley Little Athletics in 1980 with his three children and went on to play a major role in the centre’s development. He served as Centre Manager from 1983 to 2000 and was involved in athletics administration and competition at centre, zone and state levels.

The Bowden Park athletics oval was named Paul O’Brien Oval in 1999 in recognition of his contribution. O’Brien received the Medal of the Order of Australia in 1993 and Little Athletics Queensland life membership in 2002. He died in 2013 and his wife, Rosslyn O’Brien, also remained involved with the centre until she died in 2022.

Parents keep competition running

Forty-five years after its opening, the centre still relies heavily on parents and caregivers to run its athletics program.

For the 2026–27 season, families pay a $120 volunteer bond in addition to athlete registration fees. The bond can be refunded after families complete 10 volunteer events, including at least one competition set-up or scheduled working bee.

Volunteer duties include officiating, managing age groups, recording results and helping with other competition tasks. The centre says an age group cannot begin its program unless enough volunteers are available. The current $120 bond is higher than the $80 amount listed in the centre’s 2024–25 member handbook, which also required families to complete volunteer duties.

Current registrations cover athletes from Under 6 through to Under 17, with training and weekly competition continuing at the Geebung ground.

Read: Meet the “King” of the Mongols Living in Brisbane

Beyond weekend competition

Bowden Park also supports activities beyond the centre’s own weekly program. Aspley Little Athletics makes its facilities and equipment available for external bookings, including school athletics carnivals, cross-country events and organised training. 

The Aspley name can still look unusual beside a Geebung address. Bowden Park has nevertheless been the centre’s permanent Geebung base since 1984, giving Aspley Little Athletics more than four decades of history at the same northside ground.

Published 22-Sept-2026

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Jeff King’s sons could spend one day doing Australian schoolwork in their Ulaanbaatar apartment and another riding horses and milking goats with their Mongolian relatives. To them, neither life was the unusual one.

Their father is Australian; their mother grew up in a Mongolian herding family. The boys were raised between both worlds, speaking English and Mongolian and knowing Australia and Mongolia as home.

One part of their upbringing, though, remained deliberately Australian: their schooling.

Read: Meet the “King” of the Mongols Living in Brisbane — Part 1 of a 3-Part Series

An Australian classroom in Mongolia

Jeff and his wife chose an Australian homeschooling program rather than putting the boys into a Mongolian school. When they were preparing to return to Mongolia, they weren’t even certain where they would be living.

There was a possibility the family might stay in remote country with nomadic relatives, where they couldn’t count on having internet access. So instead of relying on online lessons, they went with paper.

Books and materials travelled with them. Tests and completed work went back to Australia, keeping the boys in the Australian education system even while they were living thousands of kilometres away.

“We were still in the Australian system,” Jeff said.

The family eventually settled in Ulaanbaatar rather than living remotely with the herders, but they kept the same arrangement. Jeff remembers it working “really, really well” academically.

The harder part wasn’t the schoolwork.

It was everything that normally happens around it.

After finishing lessons, the boys didn’t have classmates spilling out of school with them. That became particularly noticeable during the Mongolian winter, when temperatures around -30°C could keep them indoors for long stretches.

Jeff tried to break that up. Every couple of weeks, when they could, he would get the boys out horse riding or skiing.

Summer opened things up again. They travelled, spent time outside the city and visited their mother’s relatives, where the boys slipped into a very different rhythm.

Their mother was completely at home there. She had grown up in a herding family herself, and relatives continued to raise animals and move with the seasons. For her sons, these weren’t encounters with some distant version of Mongolian culture. The people in the gers were Grandma, aunties, uncles and cousins.

The boys could ride horses and motorbikes, herd animals, and help milk goats. They ate the dried dairy foods their father had once needed time to acquire a taste for.

English remained their first language, but their understanding of Mongolian became extensive. Jeff said his older son was the more confident speaker, although both could understand the language extremely well.

His wife brought something else to their children’s upbringing that Jeff could never have learnt from a book. She had been about nine when Mongolia’s communist era ended around 1990, and had grown up with the knowledge and routines of herding life before raising children in a very different Mongolia.

By the time her sons came along, smartphones, huge supermarkets and restaurants were part of everyday life in Ulaanbaatar. So were horses, hand-milking animals and visits to relatives who still moved their gers with the seasons.

The boys didn’t need anyone to reconcile those things for them.

They had grown up with both.

Read: Meet the “King” of the Mongols: Two Mongolias — Part 2

Coming back to Australia

Over the years, the family developed a loose rhythm: three or four years in Mongolia, then roughly a year in Australia.

COVID disrupted it. They found themselves staying in Tasmania for around two-and-a-half to three years before eventually returning to Mongolia, where their most recent stint lasted about four years.

They arrived back in Australia shortly before Christmas.

This time the boys are older, and that changes the equation. The Australian schooling they had carried with them through childhood has become increasingly important as they move into their teenage years.

What hasn’t changed is the family waiting in Mongolia, or the language and experiences they brought back with them.

For Jeff, Mongolia was somewhere he had to learn. He arrived as an Australian adult, picked up the language, adjusted to the food and gradually found his place in his wife’s family.

His sons started from somewhere very different.

The apartment and the ger, Brisbane and Ulaanbaatar, English and Mongolian, Australian schoolbooks and summers with their mother’s relatives were never competing versions of childhood. They were the same childhood.

Perhaps that is why the question of where they belong has no particularly tidy answer.

Australia is home. So is Mongolia.

Catch Jeff at the Brisbane Men’s Breakfast on October 17.

Published 15-September-2026

The post Raising a Family Between Two Worlds: Meet the “King” of the Mongols appeared first on Aspley News.

For more than 20 years, Brisbane man Jeff King has lived between two Mongolias. One has high-rise apartments, supermarkets and traffic so bad he often walks. In the other, his wife’s family can pack up their home and move with their animals — until the terrain gets too rough and the camels take over.

Jeff first went to Mongolia in 2003 and later married into a traditional herding family. His life since has taken him regularly between the capital, Ulaanbaatar, and the vast countryside where his wife’s relatives still raise sheep, goats, cattle and horses.

The family lived about three kilometres from central Ulaanbaatar, and Jeff had little enthusiasm for driving there. “We bought a car, but we didn’t buy it to drive in the city,” he said. “We bought it to get out.”

Read: Meet the “King” of the Mongols Living in Brisbane — Part 1 of a 3-Part Series

When the family moves, the house goes too

His wife’s relatives don’t simply wander across the countryside. Families have a migratory pattern for different seasons, typically making four major moves through the year, although grazing conditions can push that to eight or even 10.

The ger goes with them.

For a family accustomed to the job, Jeff said, the circular felt-covered home can be dismantled in about an hour. Trucks have taken over much of the heavy carrying, but only for as long as the terrain allows. In mountain country where a vehicle can go no further, camels can carry the ger and the family’s possessions for the rest of the journey.

Traditionally, Jeff said, a family could move its home and belongings with about five camels.

The scale of the livestock took some getting used to as well. His sister-in-law’s family can have more than 1,000 animals, roaming country without the paddocks and boundary fences familiar to Australians.

When different families’ sheep mingle, sorting them out might look impossible to an outsider. Jeff has watched herders recognise individual animals, know which lamb belongs to which ewe and separate mixed flocks. Their knowledge can stretch across generations of animals.

Even asking how many horses somebody owns comes with a rule Jeff learnt not to break. Asking directly is considered bad luck.

There is, however, a workaround: ask how many stallions the herder has. With roughly 20 mares to a stallion, Jeff said, the answer gives you a fair idea without asking the question you’re not supposed to ask.

Horses remain part of working life, although motorbikes now do plenty of the work as well. Trucks carry families between camps and smartphones have changed how people communicate across enormous distances.

Jeff has seen how quickly news can travel through communities that look isolated on a map. Phones and internet make that easier now, but even before them, information moved. Somebody would hear something, get on a motorbike and carry the news onwards.

Winter changes the equation again.

Temperatures around -30°C are unremarkable enough in Jeff’s experience, while the mercury can fall into the -40s. Families spread farther apart as grazing becomes scarcer, and journeys that are straightforward in summer become much more serious.

Hospitality matters in those conditions. A traveller arriving at an isolated ger can expect tea, food and shelter — things that take on rather more importance when it is 40 degrees below freezing outside.

Jeff generally saved his longer journeys for the warmer months. For a time, some of them were made with a vehicle full of books.

A library that came to the readers

Mongolia had high literacy from the Soviet era, Jeff said, but access to books could be difficult for families living far from population centres.

So the library travelled.

Jeff and his colleagues drove from family to family, leaving books and returning roughly a month later to exchange them. Among everything they carried, one title became the unexpected favourite: Jules Verne’s Around the World in Eighty Days.

Jeff took a camera with him too. He would photograph families, have the pictures printed and bring them back on subsequent visits, giving him another reason to return to the same people.

Over time, combinations that might initially have struck an Australian visitor as unusual became part of the scenery: a motorbike outside a ger, a smartphone in a herder’s pocket, or a truck carrying a home that might later have to be transferred to camels.

Most herdsmen also have solar panels that run a light and TV, and satellite
dish that provides them with about 100 channels – most of which are Chinese
or Russian.

None of it seemed particularly unusual to Jeff’s children.

For Jeff, moving between these two Mongolias took years of learning. For his sons, there was never the same dividing line.

The apartment and the ger, Brisbane and Ulaanbaatar, English and Mongolian, city life and their mother’s herding family — all of it belonged to their childhood.

As the boys grew older, that raised a much harder question for Jeff and his wife: when your children belong to two countries, where is home?

Jeff talks about all these and more at the Brisbane Men’s Breakfast on October 17.

NEXT: Part 3: Raising a Family Between Two Worlds

Published 15-September-2026

The post Two Mongolias: Meet the “King” of the Mongols appeared first on Aspley News.

Jeff King went to Mongolia for six weeks in 2003. He could hardly have known that the trip would lead to more than 20 years of his life there, a Mongolian wife and an extended family of nomadic herders — or that he would become comfortable with winters deep into the minus 40s, meals that begin with the offal, and journeys into country where the truck eventually stops and the camels take over.

He was 29 when he returned in 2005 to work as a Christian missionary, and Mongolia gradually became much more than the place he had gone to work. Jeff learnt the language, married into a herding family and spent years moving between life in Ulaanbaatar and visits to relatives in the countryside.

Those two worlds could hardly look more different. Ulaanbaatar has high-rises, supermarkets, restaurants, smartphones and traffic bad enough that Jeff often preferred to walk; outside the capital, members of his wife’s family continue to raise sheep, goats, cattle and horses, moving with the seasons and the available grazing.

For Jeff, that Mongolia isn’t something encountered on a tour. The people living it are his in-laws, and over the years he has had to learn everything from milking animals and living in a ger to navigating the considerable expectations of Mongolian hospitality.

Now back in Brisbane, he will tell some of those stories at the free Brisbane Men’s Breakfast at Dale Farm in Fitzgibbon on Saturday, 17 October.

Twenty-three years after that first six-week visit, the more interesting question is no longer why an Australian went to Mongolia.

It’s how Mongolia became home.

A Different Life

A striking image shows the version of life that immediately catches the eye: Jeff riding through the snow with a large bird of prey, offering a glimpse of the equestrian traditions he encountered during his years in Mongolia.

But Mongolia gets more interesting once you move beyond the photograph.

Jeff can walk through Ulaanbaatar past high-rises, supermarkets and traffic jams, then head into countryside where there are hardly any fences. His relatives can move several times in a year, taking their ger and possessions with them as they follow grazing for their animals.

Trucks now do much of the carrying. Eventually, though, the terrain can become too difficult for them.

From there, the family loads what it needs onto camels and keeps moving.

Jeff’s wife grew up in a traditional herding family, and relatives still live from their animals today. That meant his introduction to rural Mongolia was not a carefully packaged cultural experience. He was entering family life, with all the expectations that came with it.

Food was one of the quicker ways to discover them. When an animal is slaughtered, very little is wasted, and the first meal can involve parts that would rarely make it onto an Australian dinner table.

“The first meal is eating the guts,” Jeff said.

Heart and kidneys were fine by him. For everything else, experience eventually taught him to get in early, take something he liked and make his enthusiasm obvious.

“I don’t mind the heart and I don’t mind the kidneys. You grab the bit you know you don’t mind and say, ‘Oh, this is great.’ Then they’re not trying to feed you.”

Even the dairy could beat him. Aaruul, a traditional dried curd, can be extremely hard, and Jeff remembers keeping a piece in his mouth for about half an hour before discreetly burying it. These days he eats it; his boys love it.

Not every lesson was about food. He once watched his brother-in-law trade a sheep for a sack of potatoes and thought he was witnessing a terrible deal. What Jeff didn’t know was that the sheep had nearly died the previous year and was no good for breeding.

“They’re not dumb,” he said. “He gave his absolute worst sheep for their sack of potatoes.”

It was one small glimpse of how well herders know their animals. Herds can exceed 1,000 animals, yet Jeff has watched people recognise individual sheep and know which lamb belongs to which ewe.

Learning to live with the cold

Winter required a different education.

Jeff has seen temperatures fall well into the -40s and keeps a screenshot showing -49°C. On one journey his car thermometer could go no lower than -30°C, while another vehicle travelling with him eventually reached the bottom of its gauge at -40°C.

By then, the cold was affecting the vehicles themselves.

“The brake fluid starts to freeze. Your brakes don’t work really well. Even the steering fluid — the steering gets hard.”

“You never travel alone in winter,” Jeff said. “If you have a breakdown, it’s very dangerous.”

Summer made travelling through the countryside easier, and some of those journeys came through an unusual project Jeff helped operate: a mobile library.

Books were taken to nomadic families, left with them and exchanged when Jeff and his colleagues returned roughly a month later. The runaway favourite was Jules Verne’s Around the World in Eighty Days.

Jeff began taking photographs of families as well, having them printed and bringing them back on later visits. The books gave him a reason to return, and repeated visits meant people who had initially been strangers became familiar faces.

That overlapped naturally with the Christian missionary work that had brought him to Mongolia. Jeff travelled through cities and remote communities, sometimes arriving at a ger and asking simply: “Do you want to hear some good news?”

The answer varied. Some weren’t interested; others invited him inside for tea.

By then, though, Jeff’s connection to Mongolia was becoming increasingly personal. He wasn’t simply working there and returning to Australia with stories about an unusual place.

He had married into a Mongolian family, learnt their language and watched his children grow up with things he had needed years to learn. Mongolia had stopped being an overseas posting.

Bringing the story to Fitzgibbon

Jeff will be the featured speaker at the Brisbane Men’s Breakfast on Saturday, 17 October, at Dale Farm, 42A Desert Willow Way, Fitzgibbon.

The free community event starts between 6.30am and 7am, with a coffee van on site and lads of all ages welcome.

NEXT: Two Mongolias — Jeff King takes us from the streets of Ulaanbaatar into the Mongolia most visitors never get close enough to know.

Published 15-September-2026

The post Meet the “King” of the Mongols Living in Brisbane appeared first on Aspley News.

Read: Women Leading the Way in SEQ Catholic School Communities

Held at Our Lady Help of Christians Chapel, the event brought together Brisbane’s Papua New Guinea community for an Independence Mass celebrating 51 years of PNG independence. Nudgee College students joined students from Stuartholme College in the opening ceremony, while the choir and Roro dancers also took part in the liturgy.

The choir and Roro dancers participated in the procession and presentation of gifts during the Mass. In his homily, PNG community chaplain Carmelite Father Paul Sireh reflected on how communities can respond when relationships become strained.

Concelebrating the Mass with Passionist Father Tony Simbel, Father Sireh discussed traditional approaches to conflict resolution in Melanesian cultures. He explained that mediation, compensation and other traditional processes have been used to address disputes, with the aim of restoring harmony and social relationships.

Father Sireh said the emphasis was on bringing people and groups back together rather than focusing solely on punishment. He connected those ideas with the Gospel of Matthew 18:15-20, which considers relationships within the Christian community and how people should respond when divisions arise.

He also reflected on the challenges that can arise within Christian communities and the need to maintain relationships when divisions occur. The homily also turned to family life. As it was Father’s Day in Australia, Father Sireh spoke about the role of fathers and the importance of honouring parents.

The Mass was followed by lunch featuring roast pork, a variety of PNG cuisine and cakes. PNG Brisbane and Gold Coast Catholic Community leader Emilia Taatu described the gathering as a joyful celebration of the Eucharist.

Students from Nudgee College and Stuartholme College participated in the opening ceremony as part of the community’s Independence celebration.

Read: Nudgee College in Boondall Claims Second Place in National Athletics Showdown

The event brought together the chapel service, student participation, the choir and Roro dancers, and a shared meal as the community celebrated 51 years of Papua New Guinea’s independence.

Featured image credit: Facebook/PNG Brisbane & Gold Coast Catholic Community

Published 11-September-2026

The post Papua New Guinea Community in Brisbane Marks 51 Years of Independence appeared first on Aspley News.

Read: New Housing Rules Boost Capacity Along Brisbane Northside Rail Corridor

The $2.5 million project is intended to help unlock 615 homes in the Bridgeman Downs catchment. While the funding was announced earlier this year, longer-term planning for wastewater infrastructure along Beams Road shows sewer capacity has been on the agenda as this part of Brisbane’s north continues to develop.

New Infrastructure Along Beams Road

The Beams Road Sewerage Infrastructure project will include a new sewer pump station, rising main and gravity sewer main. The Queensland Government has committed $2.5 million through its Residential Activation Fund, saying the works will provide infrastructure needed to unlock 615 homes.

For growing parts of Brisbane’s north, getting new housing built is not simply a matter of having land available. Subdivisions and larger residential developments also need the sewerage, water, roads and other infrastructure capable of servicing them, and those requirements can affect when projects are able to move ahead.

Turrisi Properties Development Director Ben Kewley said when the funding was announced that the investment was an important step in supporting residential development in the Bridgeman Downs catchment. He said enabling infrastructure was essential to turning land into homes and bringing forward new communities.

Beams Road Already on the Infrastructure Map

The latest funding does not come out of nowhere. Wastewater infrastructure around Beams Road had already appeared in longer-term network planning for Bridgeman Downs.

A Brisbane City Council submission concerning Urban Utilities’ Water Netserv Plan identified a proposed rising main along Beams Road of about 633 metres, with a diameter of 150mm, together with a wastewater pump station. Those works were listed against a 2031 timeframe.

There is an important distinction, however. The planning document predates the $2.5 million funding announcement, and publicly available information does not establish that the infrastructure identified there is identical to the project now receiving Residential Activation Fund money. What it does show is that additional sewer capacity in this part of Bridgeman Downs had already been identified as part of longer-term network planning.

Housing Spread Across the Catchment

The 615-home figure can give a misleading impression if read as a single development. There has been no announcement of one new 615-home estate on Beams Road; rather, it is the number of homes the Queensland Government says the sewer infrastructure will help unlock across the Bridgeman Downs catchment.

That housing could therefore emerge across different sites and at different stages. For neighbouring Aspley, the significance is less about one large development arriving at once and more about the continuing residential growth taking place immediately to the north.

The Bridgeman Downs allocation is part of the State’s $2 billion Residential Activation Fund, which supports infrastructure such as sewerage, water, stormwater and roads needed to bring forward housing development. Across the first two rounds, the Queensland Government says four Brisbane projects are expected to unlock a combined 2,223 homes.

Construction Timeline Still to Come

What remains unclear is when residents will see work begin. As at 8 September, no publicly confirmed construction start date, completion date or contractor appointment for the $2.5 million Beams Road project could be identified.

Read: Why Is It Called Bridgeman Downs? The Story Behind the Name

Until those details emerge, the confirmed project remains a new pump station, rising main and gravity sewer main intended to support 615 additional homes. For Aspley and the surrounding northern suburbs, it is part of a broader story playing out just beyond the suburb’s boundary: more housing is being planned, and the infrastructure needed to support that growth is increasingly part of the picture.

Published 8-September-2026

The post Beams Road Sewer Upgrade to Clear Path for Hundreds of New Homes appeared first on Aspley News.

Brisbane’s northside rail corridor could accommodate a broader mix of homes as planning changes expand opportunities for low-rise development across parts of Zillmere, Fitzgibbon, Nundah, Northgate, Clayfield, Hamilton and Ascot.

Read: Bridgeman Downs Subdivision Plan Revises Beckett Road Access For 43 Lots

The suburbs stretch from established inner-north neighbourhoods to growing communities further north, giving the housing changes a varied footprint. Council’s More Homes, Sooner program is designed to increase housing supply in locations where residents can make use of existing transport, shopping and other services. 

Rail corridors put homes closer to established connections

Transport access is a major feature of several affected northside suburbs, with Nundah, Northgate and Zillmere located along Brisbane’s northern rail corridor and Clayfield and Ascot also served by passenger rail.

Greater housing capacity in those areas is consistent with Council’s broader strategy of concentrating more homes near public transport and established centres. Council says well-located development can make better use of existing infrastructure, support shorter trips and give residents easier access to shops and services. 

Nundah already combines a major residential population with a commercial centre and transport connections. The 2021 Census recorded 13,098 people in the suburb, with an average household size of 2.0 people and more than 7000 private dwellings. 

Zillmere had 9323 residents and an average household size of 2.3 people, while Northgate recorded 4876 residents and an average household size of 2.4. 

Smaller lots widen the housing mix

The low-medium density changes provide greater scope for housing between detached homes and large apartment developments.

Qualifying sites can accommodate lots as small as 120 square metres where relevant location, design and servicing requirements are satisfied. Development of up to three storeys is provided for more broadly, while multiple dwellings of up to four storeys may be permitted at designated locations near frequent public transport or centres. 

The framework supports housing types including townhouses, row houses, dual occupancies and low-rise apartments. Council says smaller and more varied homes are needed as household sizes change, particularly for people seeking alternatives to larger detached houses.

Different suburbs, a shared push for housing choice

The northside areas affected by the changes are not uniform. Nundah and Clayfield already contain substantial apartment and unit development, while Northgate, Zillmere and Fitzgibbon include a broader mix of detached and attached housing.

Hamilton and Ascot add an inner-north dimension, with established services and transport connections providing another setting for additional low-medium density housing.

Eligible land will remain within the low-medium density residential framework rather than being converted to high-rise zoning. Design provisions regulate matters including building scale, site cover, landscaping and servicing, with additional controls applying to smaller lots.

Read: Brisbane and Housing4Change Team Up To Deliver New Community Housing In Zillmere

The changes increase the range of housing that can be developed across eligible northside sites, particularly around established transport and services. Actual construction will still depend on individual properties, landowners, market conditions and applicable development approvals.

Published 7-Sept-2026

The post New Housing Rules Boost Capacity Along Brisbane Northside Rail Corridor appeared first on Aspley News.

Read: Two Suburbs, Two Very Different Versions of Brisbane’s Housing Boom

His six-game QuickPick secured the entire $4 million division-one prize. The result on 25 August placed the multimillion-dollar win just south of Aspley, in neighbouring Geebung.

Son uncovers the multimillion-dollar result

The retiree remained unaware of the size of his prize until his son visited at the weekend and helped check the entry. His son confirmed that the numbers had delivered a $4 million division-one win.

News of the result left the elderly Geebung resident emotional when he later made contact with officials. He had gone several days without knowing that his entry was the sole division-one winner recorded across Australia for the draw.

Phone habit keeps winner out of reach for a week

Attempts had been made to contact the winner each day after the draw because his entry was linked to an online account. Officials were unable to reach him until he made contact about a week later.

The retiree said he routinely kept his phone switched off, explaining why the repeated calls had gone unanswered. His circumstances differed from many unclaimed-prize cases because organisers had contact details associated with his entry but could not reach him.

Travel and family visits among plans for the money

The Geebung man said the $4 million would give him an opportunity to travel and see more places. He also planned to visit members of his late wife’s family who live up north.

No further details were provided about his intended destinations or when he expected to travel. His plans were among the first changes he identified after learning the full value of the prize.

QuickPick entry takes the only division-one prize

The winning six-game QuickPick was purchased online, with the numbers generated for the entry rather than individually selected by the player. Numbers drawn on August 25 were 4, 27, 43, 2, 21, 47 and 33, while the supplementary numbers were 17, 12 and 19.

Only one division-one entry was recorded nationally in draw 1697. The successful entry belonged to the Geebung resident, giving him the full $4 million first-division prize.

Unclaimed prizes can remain available for years

Unclaimed prizes most commonly arise because people have not checked their tickets and do not realise they have won, according to an unclaimed-prizes fact sheet. Prizes remaining unclaimed for longer than a week or two are described as relatively rare.

Queensland winners have up to seven years to claim a prize. Anyone who believes they hold a winning ticket is advised to keep it safe and contact the organiser on 131 868 to confirm the result and begin the claim process.

Read: Why Did the Railway Bypass Aspley?

People whose winning tickets have been lost, stolen or damaged are advised to make contact as soon as possible. A verification process is available, although clear and irrefutable evidence may be required when an unregistered ticket cannot be produced.

Published 30-Aug-2026

The post Geebung Man Learns He’s $4 Million Richer After Missed Calls appeared first on Aspley News.

Read: Could a Neighbourhood Food Hub Cut the Grocery Bill? Box Divvy Opens in Zillmere

The development application seeks approval to extend the existing centre through changes to Buildings A and D and construction of a new Building E.

Gross floor area would increase from 5,253.16 square metres to 6,342.63 square metres, representing a net increase of 1,089 square metres. The number of car parking spaces would rise from 275 to 293.

Two-Stage Changes At McDowall Village

Stage 1 would involve removing Building A and replacing its footprint with additional ground-level parking.

Building D would be partly demolished and extended, with the extension adding 884 square metres of gross floor area. Proposed changes include a larger Coles supermarket, a new specialty shop, an airlock and forecourt entrance, as well as an expansion of the undercroft car park.

Stage 2 would add Building E, comprising 502 square metres of gross floor area and two new tenancies.

The development has a proposed maximum building height of three storeys, while Building E would be no more than seven metres high.

Parking, Pedestrian Access And Landscaping

The proposed 293 parking spaces include six motorcycle spaces. New parking along the Hamilton Road frontage would be accompanied by landscaping, while other spaces would be incorporated beneath the supermarket extension.

Existing vehicle access arrangements would be retained. The planning assessment also states that road widening would not be required for the proposal.

Pedestrian changes include improved access from both road frontages, a new travelator to the undercroft car park and upgrades to the pathway serving the existing childcare centre.

The plans also provide for enhanced pedestrian connections, bicycle parking and end-of-trip facilities. No removal of existing street trees is proposed, while significant vegetation identified along the eastern boundary is also not proposed for clearing.

Staging Intended To Keep Tenants Trading

Construction would be sequenced across the two stages with the intention of allowing existing tenancies to continue trading while works are undertaken.

Existing shopping centre operating hours and servicing arrangements would remain unchanged under the proposal.

The proposed extensions are designed to reflect architectural features and materials already used at the centre. Awnings and landscaping would also form part of the treatment near the road frontages.

The 18,770-square-metre site has about 85 metres of frontage to Beckett Road and 190 metres to Hamilton Road.

Application Still Under Assessment

Application A007087715 is a code-assessable Material Change of Use for extensions to a shopping centre.

McDowall Village Shopping Centre Pty Ltd is listed as the primary applicant, with Plan A Town Planning Pty Ltd as consultant.

Read: Why Is It Called Bridgeman Downs? The Story Behind the Name

The application record lists 14 August 2026 as the date submitted. It remains in progress at the “With Customer” stage, with no decision notice recorded and public notification listed as not applicable.

Published 28-August-2026

The post McDowall Village Expansion Proposes Bigger Coles, New Shops And More Parking appeared first on Aspley News.

Read: Two Suburbs, Two Very Different Versions of Brisbane’s Housing Boom

So, who was Bridgeman Downs named after? Historical research points to Henry St John Bridgeman, a bank manager who migrated from Ireland to Queensland in the 1860s. His documented connection to the area came through land ownership, although the family did not live on the land that would eventually carry his name.

The Landowner Behind the Name

Research by the State Library of Queensland established that Bridgeman arrived in Brisbane aboard the Golden City on 9 March 1863, having left Queenstown, now Cobh, in Ireland, on 10 December 1862.

He arrived with his wife, Frances, their nine children and a servant, Johanna Quinn. Land Order records show the family obtained four land grants in 1863, followed by another in 1865 and a further grant in 1874.

The records provide a clear documented connection to the area now known as Bridgeman Downs. H. S. Bridgeman’s name appeared on 153 hectares of land there, while his holdings also extended across 433 hectares in the present-day Boondall-Sandgate region.

Bridgeman Downs was named after H. S. Bridgeman in 1977. The land was later acquired by the Queensland Immigration Society and used for pig raising and field crops. It remained farmland for about 80 years before being subdivided in 1957.

The district was once quite different from the residential suburb residents know today. Its agricultural history stretched across decades, long before suburban development changed the landscape.

The Family That Lived Somewhere Else

Despite the family’s connection to the land, their known homes were elsewhere. The Bridgemans first lived in Ipswich, where Henry worked for the Bank of Queensland. A seventh daughter, Isabella, was born there in 1866. The family later lived in Light Street, Fortitude Valley, which remained their home for many years.

Henry died in Light Street in 1878, while Frances died in 1901. Their children went on to pursue different lives. Lucy and Agnes became nuns and teachers with the Sisters of Mercy. Lucy, known as Sister Mary Bega, died in 1877, while Agnes, Sister Mary Theresa, lived until 1931 and taught at convents in Central Queensland.

Other members of the family remained in Brisbane. Constance and Mary lived in Light Street and ran a business. Johanna died in 1881 at the age of 27, while Isabella, the only Queensland-born child, died in 1886 aged 20. Their brother Henry died in 1891, aged 36.

Only two of the ten Bridgeman children are recorded as having married in Queensland. Richard married Johanna Liebs in 1882, while Teresa married P Banks Wilkins in 1899 and later remarried in 1905.

One part of the family’s story remains unresolved. The State Library’s research did not locate records for the youngest son, Orland, although Frances Bridgeman’s obituary in 1901 stated that she was survived by four daughters and one son.

A Name That Stayed on the Map

The history behind Bridgeman Downs is therefore less about a family settling in the suburb and more about the landholding that connected Henry St John Bridgeman to the district.

Today, Bridgeman Downs is a residential suburb, a marked change from the farmland that once occupied the area. The suburb was gazetted in 1977, preserving the Bridgeman name long after Henry’s death.

Read: From Aspley Netball Courts to Queensland Basketball History: Kath Williamson’s Story

For a name now attached to streets, homes and a whole suburb, its origins are surprisingly easy to overlook.

To trace the Bridgeman family is to look to Ireland, Ipswich, Fortitude Valley and Central Queensland. Just not, it seems, on the land that eventually became Bridgeman Downs.

Published 27-August-2026

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