Couple’s 60 years of adventure

MARY and Bruce Gates have always been up for an adventure, but their 60th wedding anniversary celebrations certainly didn’t go as planned.

The Cooya Beach couple eloped in their 20s while living in Canada and booked a cruise from Perth on the QE2 this year to mark their anniversary.

Mary said it had the makings of a dream trip.

“Because we had taken the Queen Mary in 1961, we were given an upgrade and another upgrade because it was our 60th wedding anniversary.

“This put us in the exclusive category of Queens Grill, where you had your own dining room, pool deck and bar.”

But it was a time of chaos for travellers around the world as coronavirus let loose.

“After flying to Perth, we were told on the day of departure at 4am that the cruise had been cancelled,” said Mary, 80.

“With the cancellation went all the upgrades. So back to

Cairns we flew,” she said.

The Canadian-born pair met at high school as teens.

“We went to the only English Protestant speaking high school in Quebec City.”

They started dating while Bruce was at university and eloped three months after he landed a job in Toronto.

“When you eloped in the 1960s, people automatically expected you to be pregnant, but because my parents were divorced, it was going to be very complicated to have a proper wedding, so we decided to elope,” Mary said.

There was just one hitch. “We needed my father’s permission, but he knew Bruce’s parents and Bruce.”

Despite having four children, they sold up in the 1960s and moved first to New Zealand and then Australia.

“We were born and brought up in Canada, but in those days you only got two weeks holiday every year in Canada and because of his work, Bruce wasn’t able to take two weeks in succession,” Mary said.

“We thought this is ridiculous. What are we doing here?”

The years since have been spent living in Auckland, Adelaide, Yeppoon, England, Hong Kong and Vanuatu before settling on Port Douglas and then Cooya Beach.

“We’ve had an exciting life, but you’ve got to make the decision to do it,” Mary said.