Treasure Hunt launch booked out!

A High Tea at Café Zoo in Drysdale on Monday 7 January will launch the 2019 Festival of Glass Treasure Hunt.

The High Tea was booked out two weeks in advance and, not surprisingly, owner Marc Rodway is delighted. “It will be a great start to this year’s Festival of Glass and to its Treasure Hunt”, he said.

High Tea guests can watch local glass artist Glenda MacNaughton blowing and sculpting glass and browse the “Birds of the Bellarine” glass art exhibition that runs until March.

Thirty three businesses in Curlewis, Drysdale, Clifton Springs and Portarlington are involved in the Treasure Hunt, which has over a hundred prizes of locally-made glass art.

 

10 November: State election candidates forum

Bellarine Peninsula misses out on ferry trial

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(Source: Herald-Sun)

Businessman Paul Little has announced that on May 16, it will start an eight-week trial of a ferry service between Point Cook and Docklands that won’t include a stop on the Bellarine Peninsula.

In the trial, a catamaran will ferry 400 passengers indoors from Wyndham Harbour near Point Cook, to Docklands' Victoria Harbour in the CBD in the morning peak time; and will return during the evening peak time. Mr Little's Little Group has established a new company - Port Phillip Ferries – to run the service, which will take around 70 minutes each way. The new company wants to reduce the travel time, which it says is due to low speed limits on the Yarra River.

An adult return fare will cost around $20 during the trial, while the normal cost will be $25 for an online booking and $29 if bought on the day, with discounts for seniors, children and concession cardholders. Parking at Wyndham Harbour marina will be included in the fare and ferry passengers will have free wi-fi access.

 

Still no ferry for the Bellarine

When Mr Little first floated his plan for a ferry service in October 2015, it included a stop at Portarlington, but Mr Little said more work was needed to allow ferries to berth there. "We'd be very happy to run the ferries out of Portarlington if the demand was there", he said.

The infrastructure for a Portarlington ferry stop will be completed in the months after the Port Phillip Ferries trial. The 2016 state budget includes money for Stage Two of the $15m ‘safe harbour’ at Portarlington, which includes docking for ferry services and is due to be completed in the 2016-2017 financial year. The budget also includes $107m to build the long-awaited Drysdale bypass which, once complete, will make a Portarlington ferry a more attractive option for people from the western Bellarine who commute to Melbourne.

Begging the question

Point Cook residents who have to spend hours a day travelling to and from jobs in the city would welcome a ferry between Wyndham Harbour and Melbourne’s CBD. Similarly, Bellarine Peninsula residents forced to commute to Melbourne would welcome a ferry between Portarlington and the CBD – either as part of the proposed Port Phillip Ferries service or in addition to it.

However, such ferry services solve a problem that shouldn’t have been created – insufficient business and jobs for the expanding population of Geelong and the Bellarine Peninsula. The City of Greater Geelong has actively encouraged the creation of ever more housing estates, home to many thousands of residents, without ensuring that there are jobs to support them. The result is the creation of 'dormitory towns' as an increasing number of people on the Bellarine joining commuters from Geelong on the hours-long commuter trek to and from central Melbourne.

For example, when the Curlewis ‘growth area’ on the outskirts of Drysdale is completed, it will house  around 16,000 people, yet the area is virtually deserted during the day (apart from builders and tradies building more houses), because so many of its residents are commuters. The only jobs are at the small shopping centre, with its Woolworth supermarket and a handful of ‘speciality’ shops and even these will be at risk as the Leopold shopping centre expands from its present 5,000m² to 65,000m² by 2021. (See “More shops, no vision” [13 October 2013] on this blog.)

Creating a jobs drain

An expanded Leopold shopping centre will drain custom from elsewhere on the Bellarine, just as shopping centres in Waurn Ponds and Corio Village have drained custom from central Geelong. The shopping centres provide some new jobs, but most are relatively low-skilled, low-paid and with very limited career paths. Why are there no plans to provide other sorts of jobs?

CoGG's drive to expand the population of the Bellarine must be accompanied by plans to expand and diversify employment. As a rule of thumb, a new job should be created for each house built. That would at least start to match economic growth with population growth.

Windswept but worth it!

DCSCA's new marquee had its first outing on Saturday 9 January at the annual Mussel Festival in Portarlington.

Janet Jenkin, Diane Schofield and Rick Paradise

The association was one of several organisations with connections to the local coastline that formed a display near the entrance to the Portarlington pier.

The display was coordinated by Bellarine Bayside, which hopes that the display will become a regular feature of the Mussel Festival.

Overall, the weather was quite benign, but occasional strong gusts of wind coming off the bay had stall-holders frantically retrieving the leaflets, brochures and flyers that they had laid out carefully and artistically! One marquee nearly ended up in the bay, but the DCSCA marquee acquitted itself well and at the last count, none of the volunteers from the DCSCA and Festival of Glass committees was missing!

Making ourselves known
The display formed an adjunct to the Mussel Festival proper and a steady stream of people walked past it or through it on their way to the Festival. The volunteers at the DCSCA tent promoted two new features of the Festival of Glass - the glass art Treasure Hunt, which starts on February 1st and finishes at the Festival Expo on Sunday 21 February; and the glass art Masterclass at Leura Park on February 19. There was a lot of interest, with people taking leaflets faster than the wind!

(For more information on the glass art Treasure Hunt  and the glass art Masterclass, see the Festival of Glass web site: www.festivalofglass.net.au)

DCSCA at the Portarlington Mussel Festival

DCSCA will have a stall at the 10th annual Portarlington Mussel Festival on January 9th, following an invitation by the Festival organisers.

The annual Mussel Festival is very popular with locals and with the tourists who swell the population of the Bellarine Peninsula at this time each year.

The 2016 Festival will run from 9.30am to 5.00pm. It will include 100 food and drink stalls, market stalls, local musicians and entertainers, art shows, cooking demonstrations and tastings of local beer and wine .... "and all this for just $2!", as the organisers say.

The 2015 Festival attracted 10,000 people and still more are expected at this year's event.

For information about the stall-holders, go to www.portmusselfestival.com/stallholders/

The DCSCA stall will be near the pier; we're looking forward to meeting you and hearing your views on how the area is growing and developing.