It wasn’t hard to identify the sentimental favourite for the Rip Curl Pro at Bells Beach this week.
Homemade signs typically proclaiming ‘Go Mick’ appeared everywhere, from fences to trees, the side of houses and T-shirts at the event itself.
The message appeared everywhere, along the Great Ocean Road drive to the contest site, around Jan Juc and even in the depths of Torquay’s sprawling suburbia.
Visitors would have struggled to find any encouragement for anyone other than the three-time world champion as he prepared to bow out of competitive surfing at the conclusion of Bells.
It was like a home-town advantage for a bloke from the Gold Coast!
Corangamite MP Sarah Henderson certainly did her best to wring the most out of the Federal Government’s announcement this week that it would establish a Naval Shipbuilding College.
She spruiked the opportunities for locals in a statement headlined ‘Corangamite Students Unlock Careers in Naval Shipbuilding’.
The college would provide her constituents with a “career pathway” into Australia’s pending $90 billion program for building navy ships, Ms Henderson proclaimed.
Great news indeed.
So where will the college be sited? Waurn Ponds? Adjacent to Deakin’s Waterfront campus?
Err, try Osborne, South Australia – around 730 kilometres from Geelong.
It’s a “pathway” all right, but an extremely long one!
And happy birthday to former Geelong mayor Des Podbury, who turned 90 this week.
The city’s municipal leader from 1980 to 1982, back in the day Des was also a prominent local businessman who ran the former Podbury’s Bakery.
Could baked goods be the key to Des’s longevity? Possibly, but the more likely explanation is his long involvement in physical activity.
The now-nonagenarian from Newtown was something of an athlete, right from his teens as a champion schoolboy runner through to his decades-long membership of Geelong’s Gym, which only ended in his mid-80s.
A Double Take correspondent says Des is expecting a special guest today for a joint celebration. Former bakery employee Betty Dangerfield, the grandmother of Cats star Patrick, has also just turned 90.
That’s 180 years of local history right there.
Have a great day, Des and Betty!
