COMMUNITY UPDATES

Today, outside, it is pelting down. Talk about coming down like cats and dogs – elephants and blue whales, more like! Oops… down comes a rhino! This is getting serious. Not to be daunted, and my near vision blurry from peering at the computer screen, I repair to the fireside to indulge a good Netflix […]

I thought it might be nice to write about something we never now read in the press, see on the tele, or tune in to the wireless. It’s not about recent murder or mayhem, carnage on the roads, how drugs are hiding under every doormat, the latest idiocies of the ‘cancel-culture brigade’, the next accusation […]

The other day, when visiting my bride of nearly 50 years, now so sadly wandering, or worse – lost – in her limited world of Alzheimer’s dementia, I happened upon an activity in which I had not previously participated: lid-sorting! It was fun. It helped pass her time for her. But above all, it helped […]

I doff my cap, I lift my lid, I tug at my disappearing forelock, and in every other way I can conceive of saluting, I salute the people of Lorne. Our tradies, our essential services, and in some wild and woolly weather, our SES. Our Ambos, Jonathon and his careful policing, and those at up […]

In 2017, the Great Ocean Road Coast Committee [GORCC] published a ‘Fact Sheet’ that sought to [1] inform and [2] garner public feedback for plans to upgrade the Torquay Front Beach Sea Wall. Although it is now four years old, it is still worth reading [1]. This document nicely sets out the options available to […]

I am getting a bit tired of all those well-meaning people out there – though I don’t doubt their good intent – who seem hell-bent on ‘keeping me safe’. ‘It’s alright’! … ‘Don’t panic’! … ‘We are keeping you safe’!  If ever there is a better way to engender uncertainty than to be bombarded with […]

I love some of the strange flotsam that can dot our coastline – especially after a wild and woolly easterly. It is humbling to consider the amazing, lesser-known creatures that live but an arms-length into our oceans – yet that we so rarely see. If only Darwin had been able to take the deepest breath […]

The Lorne Community Opportunity Shop (Lorne Op Shop) this year is celebrating its fiftieth year of owning its shop at 98 Mountjoy Parade Lorne. The celebrations have included an afternoon drinks party on the Lorne foreshore and an exciting celebratory lunch at Lorne Central. Unfortunately, on the anniversary of the actual date (4th June) the COVID […]

Returning bigger and better after a COVID-affected year, the Lorne Sculpture Biennale 2021 will see Lorne become a significant player in Australian contemporary art. Under a new curatorial model, the Biennale has been themed “Spirit of Place”, with 16 artists invited to respond to ideas, histories and identity inherent in the concept of place. Over […]

Within the last two months, I have been forced to turn back on back roads in the Otway hinterland – once by a giant messmate on Kaanglang Track, and again by a massive Mountain Ash 1.5 metres in girth on Garveys Track. Only last weekend, when going to open the Historical Society’s exhibition, “Logging in […]