Mansfield Courier 25 November 1998
Trevor Jones
The show's Joel Grey-accented compere, Carmel Jones sought to regain audience attention for the remainder of the program.
She presented her cabaret-style intro to the first act with the confident relish of one who knows that they're on a winner.
Andrew Dwyer is one of those multifarious individuals that you are liable to encounter in the most unlikely milieu.
He could be preparing a gourmet-style meat on a campfire in the middle of the Simpson Desert, addressing a tourist conference in Sydney, or enjoying five-star treatment in a Milan hotel.
Chances are, that his slightly travel-worn guitar is in the immediate vicinity, and that it will not take a surfeit of encouragement to have him launch into his ebullient and infectious entertaining style : when the moment is right. Educated at Melbourne Grammar, Andrew's boyhood plan for a career, focused with unshakeable resolve on becoming a pop star, and despite the well-intended counselling of his dentist father, Nev, it was a goal that he never lost sight of. Through catering training at William Angliss College he was chosen as a trainee manager for the P-Nuts Restaurant group and quickly scored management of its Adelaide operation. Soon he was a partner in the Toucan Restaurant -still one of that city's best restaurants and night spots.
A former Rotary exchange student, he was constantly looking to new horizons. There was a stint as a ski instructor with Contiki Tours in Hopfgarten, Austria, some spectacular climbing involving such challenging peaks as the Eiger and Jungfrau, and the sheer ice wall of the Fuscherkarpkopf in Austria.
In London, Andrew became an audio producer/session musician before returning to Australia to become general manger of Short Change Productions Recording and Audio Services in 1984. In the following year he struck
out on his own forming the Diamantina Touring Company. From the start, the Dwyer tour style was 'different'.
Holiday makers aboard one of his charter boats were sometimes startled to observe the skipper Reg, singing joyfully at the helm in the 'Full Monty'. : Bushwalks in the high country, and tours around the Great Ocean Rd taking in Aboriginal sites soon established Andrew as an operator with the kind of flair required to challenge the imagination of tourists -particularly from overseas.
He was elected inaugural chairman of the Victorian Tourism Operators' Association, and his company won the Tour Operator of the Year award in 1991.
Visiting the world's largest travel show in Berlin, Internationale Tourismus Borse, nine years ago Andrew was persuaded to give an impromptu item for the gathering. It went down so well that Qantas decided there and then to make Andrew a part of its annual presentation at the conference. They've been flying him there regularly ever since.
In 1993, the popular television travel show Getaway accompanied Andrew on one of his Simpson Desert safaris. The following year , he was signed up by the rival Great Outdoors to demonstrate his unique bush cooking style.
Andrew, and his vivacious wife, Jane, have three children -Paddy, Jack and Rose. Jane is the district health sister, but with Andrew, is always a part of Jamieson's annual variety concert. This year , Andrew exploded on the stage as Elvis Presley.
His willingness to 'have a go' is reflected in his outback tours, which , have slowly progressed from the original tour de force of the out- back to more exciting and often quite unpredictable adventures into unknown areas.
Last year, he took a party to the mouth of the Cooper where they located and signed a 'visitor's book' that contained the signatures of only eight other parties -despite being in existence for over a decade.
Next year, he plans to attempt to find the final resting place of Alfred Gibson who disappeared when on an expedition with Ernest Giles in 1873. ; A member of the Royal Geographic Society, he is using the society's library resources to plan an exciting schedule of future trips to exotic destinations.