Local drinkers might have spat their mouthfuls when Little Creatures Brewery announced this week it would “can” Geelong’s-own beer.
After all, Furphy Refreshing Ale was only launched in 2014 and seemed to have built a reasonable following. Surely it deserved a few more rounds, especially considering the brand’s historic links to Geelong.
Well, luckily the canning reference was literal, with Little Creatures actually meaning it would begin supplying the “much-loved” ale in containers of aluminium as well as glass.
Phew! Now the froth has settled we’ll certainly drink to that.
Another announcement raising eyebrows this week related to “killer kelp” off Queenscliff.
Apparently, courageous divers risked life and snorkel to remove 200kg of e the culprit around Pope’s Eye, a popular diving site.
However, Parks Victoria eventually clarified that the mission was less dangerous than perhaps suggested.
In reality, the department admitted, the invasive foreign kelp was deadly only to local kelps, which it crowded out while taking over underwater environments.
Just as well – local divers already have enough to contend with in sharks and rough waters without the threat of molestation by monstrous plants.
Double Take’s chief correspondent has returned from a Taiwanese sojourn with interesting observations for ongoing efforts to maintain the Great Ocean Road with some semblance of adequacy.
Primarily, what the hell’s so wrong with our governments that they can’t even keep Australia’s most-iconic tourism route up to scratch?
Taiwan’s equivalent, the sparsely-populated Highway 11, snakes down the country’s east coast in a glorious example of first-class infrastructure provision and maintenance.
Wider, smoother and with better-tended roadsides all the way, it makes our ocean road look like a goat track.
And that’s without all the additional amenities, including numerous tunnels bored through mountainsides.
Taiwanese road crews also know how to get things done fast, reopening the highway often within hours of any landslide. Compare that to last year’s Great Ocean Road chaos, which closed some sections for weeks.
Taiwan’s pollies are notorious for punch-ups in parliament – if only ours had similar passion for roadworks!
Meanwhile, another example of local infrastructure idiocy emerged this week with calls for a new Barwon Heads bridge.
That’s right, barely six years since State Government launched its convoluted $40 million existing-bridge redevelopment, it’s already inadequate.
Readers might remember the tortured consultation process, which initially swung back and forth between rebuilding the existing bridge and constructing a new, larger crossing at Geelong Rd.
The politically-expedient decision eventually settled on separate bridges for motorists and pedestrians at the existing Barwon Heads-Ocean Grove Rd site, which was then already bordering on summer gridlock.
Now Upper House MP Simon Ramsay is leading calls for another bridge after the inevitable traffic bottleneck began peaking “every weekend”.
Mr Ramsay wants “serious discussion” on the options – history suggests he might need to visit Taiwan to have one!
