Torquay residents are up in arms over the threat of five-storey buildings in the beachside centre of their once-sleepy town.
Fair enough, too. The Gold Coast can stay where it is.
But has the horse already bolted on the town now referred to as Point Cook By the Sea?
After all, the past decade or so of Surf Coast councils have overseen phenomenal residential development at Torquay. And a fair bit of commercial as well.
Just last month the council squeezed extra allotments into plans for housing at Spring Creek, the very development of which most residents vigorously opposed in the first place.
And then a few years back was the quiet introduction of the Surf Coast’s first high-density zoning – the same allowing skyscrapers in Docklands. Watch out Torquay north!
All this has delivered a regional-city-sized population of 18,000 – and, according to forecasts, 28,000 by 2040.
Hopefully they also sign petitions against high-rise development!
With summer fast approaching, the usual flood of warnings about everything from fire danger to sunburn will get their annual run.
But the flood began this week with a trickle of advice that was probably redundant for anyone with at least a shred of brain tissue between their ears.
Yes, the Vision Eye Institute was on hand with its timely tips on … safe handling of champagne corks.
Some readers will be surprised to know it’s not a good idea to open a champagne bottle pointed at the face of anyone nearby.
And pointing the bottle at a wall is another no-no because, as the institute cleverly warns, “a cork can ricochet off a surface and propel itself into someone’s eye”.
Sheesh, talk about killjoys. Maybe the liver institute can follow up with a warning on the dangers of consuming the bottle’s contents!
And to finish with a question that nobody’s asking, but which might be worth answering – whatever happened to the cannon recovered from the Light of the Age shipwreck in 1976?
That’s what former scuba diver Marilyn Archer wants to know after a friend came across a picture of said cannon and its bearded retrieval team.
“At this time diving and knowledge of shipwrecks was in its infancy, so it was a great discovery,” says an intrigued Marilyn.
“What happened to this canon after all their effort? Was it restored, lost?
“Someone out there might know.”
Double Take checked the Victorian Heritage Council website, finding only that the cannon was “removed”, but not to where. Blast!
A consolation at least was the council’s description of how the vessel came to be wrecked.
“Captain drunk, ran ashore at night.”
Not a bad effort considering he was on water at the time!
