MATRIMONIAL MYSTERY BOX

IT’S a 1980s mystery fit for Magnum PI to solve.

A treasure trove of wedding photos hidden away for up to 30 years has been discovered at a former Gold Coast tourist attraction and the hunt is on to find the owners.

At least three portraits of matrimonial magic were recently found at Nerang’s Country Paradise Parklands, dating back to the site’s heyday as a tourist attraction.

Hidden away in the site’s former function centre, the Nerang Community Association is now hoping to track down the happy couples or their relatives and return the photographs.

Association president Lynn Ogden said the portraits were an insight into an earlier time in the city’s history.

“These pictures appear to have been taken in the mid to late 1980s and we are really keen to reunite them with the people who are in the shots,” she said.

“We do not know what their life’s journey has been since the pictures were taken but it could be that there are families who would be deMr lighted to get these, if not the couples themselves.

“It’s a big enigma but whoever took the pictures did a great job and now we just want anyone who knows these people to step forward.”

Some of the pictures were taken by Tony Ciappara, now a mortgage broker, who was a photographer on the Coast in the 1980s and had a photographic studio at Pacific Fair.

Ciappara is overseas and not contactable. Paradise Country was an Australianathemed attraction from the mid-1980s until the late-90s. It was popular for its weddings, sheep-shearing and children’s parties. Following its closure, the site fell into disrepair in the 2000s before it was bought by the Gold Coast Council and transformed into a community facility.