For Fernmount’s Ron Czisz, the reunion was a chance to catch up with an old mate he hadn’t seen for five decades but whose career he had followed with great interest: Australia’s Governor-General, His Excellency the Honourable Sir Peter Cosgrove.

Ron Czisz left the military in 1968 and became a research chemist, later moving to the Coffs Coast and retraining as a science teacher.

His friend Peter stayed in the army, earned a Military Cross in Vietnam in 1971, rose to national prominence as a major general in 1999 for his leadership of an international peacekeeping mission to East Timor, and became Chief of the Defence Force in 2002.

After retiring from the army in 2005, he led the taskforce to rebuild communities of northern Queensland devastated by Cyclone Larry, and afterwards a suburb near Townsville was named Cosgrove in his honour.

In 2014 he succeeded Dame Quentin Bryce as Governor-General of Australia.

But at the reunion, Ron said they didn’t spend much time talking about Peter’s career.

“We spoke about what I was doing and what I’d done. Obviously I knew what he’d done, so I didn’t ask him too many questions.”

Ron has spent the last decade living at Fermount, near Burdett Park, and has restored three acres of his property to rainforest by planting 500 trees.

He ran Bellinger Valley Bush Foods for a while after retiring from his position as Head of Science at John Paul College, where he taught for 25 years.

Apart from Ron’s life post-Duntroon, another topic of conversation at the reunion was, of course, old times.

Ron had read Peter’s autobiography, My Story, published in 2006, which mentioned that he’d got into some scrapes at Duntroon.

“Most of those involved me,” Ron said. “But it was nothing serious.”

On one occasion, they’d accepted a lift home after being on leave in Canberra, and the driver rolled the car.

“I went to hospital but Peter was all right,” he said.

However, Ron wouldn’t be drawn into relating more of their adventures.

“I promised Peter I’d never say anything about all the other ones,” he said.

At Duntroon, they were both in the Kokoda company, and their rooms in the dormitory were on the same corridor.

“Peter and I played football together too,” Ron said. “We won the under 18s competition in Canberra that year. I scored most of the points.”

The three-day reunion involved a formal dinner at the War Memorial, a cruise on Lake Burley Griffin, and a barbecue at Yarralumla.

“Peter gave a speech at the formal dinner, which was very humorous and light-hearted and he spoke of some of his experiences as Governor-General,” Ron said. “And I’ve got a photo of me sitting in his chair in his office, at the desk Whitlam was sacked from.”

Sir Peter Cosgrove will step down as Governor-General in June.

Replacing him will be another former Chief of the Defence Force, NSW Governor David Hurley, a familiar face in Bellingen due to his regular attendance at the Sergeant Matthew Locke MG charity rugby league matches.