Our story
A place that was here long before us.
Seventy-seven acres of protected bushland at the quiet end of Lake Macquarie. A lodge that started life as a shed. A name that people still say with affection. And now a new chapter in a long line of custodians.
Before any of it
Country
Long before there was a road named Toepfers, or a lake called Macquarie, this was Aboriginal land — and it still is. The bush here is not scenery. It is a cultural landscape with recorded heritage sites in it, some of them cut into stone and impossible to move.
That story has its own page, and it will keep developing as we work with the Traditional Custodians.
Around 2000
A shed becomes a lodge
The lodge began life as a steel shed. Around the turn of the century it was converted into accommodation: six bedrooms, a lounge, a dining room, a kitchen and a covered deck looking into the trees. The pool dates from the same period.
The buildings and gardens that followed grew from that lodge, and it remains the centre of the property today.
The retreat years
Rainbows Reach
In the years that followed the place became a retreat. It was run as a solar-powered, eco-friendly, minimalist property, and the lodge hosted residential trainings, weekend getaways, yoga, meditation and community living from the mid-2000s.
People who came here in those years still talk about the long table, the bridge over the water and the light through the gums in the morning. That is the feel the property has kept.
2026
New custodians
In 2026 the property passed to new custodians. The first work has been to understand the land, its history and its approvals before anything new is built, so that what comes next sits on a sound footing.
The zoning here exists to conserve the bush, and the retreat is being developed within it: low-impact, approved before it happens, and in step with the people whose Country this is.
What happens next
Slowly, and in the open.
Rainbow Retreat will open once its approvals are in place and the Traditional Custodians have been part of the conversation. This page will grow as the story does.