EARLY morning walkers at Safety Beach on Friday were horrified and saddened to see the white underbelly of a large dead stingray lying in the shallows. Several passersby thought it was one they had often admired from the beach. Regulations to protect stingrays, skates and guitar fish came into force on 7 November making it illegal to catch the fish from or within 400 metres of any man made structure. Fisheries officer Rod Barber, who on Friday was checking boats at the Safety Beach launching ramp, found a round wound behind the dead stingray’s head. “If they’re not going to…
Author: Keith Platt
JOHN Schultz knows a thing or two about football jumpers. He’s grabbed plenty as their wearers flashed past on the footy field. But he also knows they were once the best thing to keep you warm in the surf. Young surfers of today wouldn’t know about the footy jumper-in-the-surf trick. They have the luxury of being able to choose wetsuits for summer and winter, or even a spring suit for the in-between seasons. One of the footy jumpers former Footscray ruckman Schultz wore in the surf at Point Leo back in the early 1960s has a history. The tradition of…
JOHN Clarke made a name for himself as a stalker of politicians and hypocrites. He managed to pour scorn with a twinkle in his eye and a half smile, leaving his target little choice but to respond in the same way. Sometimes his barbed comments were so sharp his victim would be impaled before he or she had a chance to realise the space they now occupied. But Clarke, who died Sunday 9 April this year, also enjoyed a sometimes-solitary pastime that also involved a great deal of subterfuge and stalking. The cutting comedian photographed birds. He had a special…
TWO of the four MPs whose electorates cover Frankston and the Mornington Peninsula voted against the Voluntary Assisted Dying Bill passed by the Victorian Parliament’s lower house. The upper house is expected to vote on the bill in the next few weeks. Mornington Liberal MP David Morris and Frankston MP, Labor’s Paul Edbrooke, voted for the bill. Mr Morris’s Liberal colleagues, Neale Burgess (Hastings) and Martin Dixon (Nepean) were against. MPs of all parties were allowed a conscience vote for the contentious legislation proposed by the Andrews Labor government, which took four days to debate before it was passed 47…
THE backyard swimming pool is covered in plastic to keep away messy ducks. The wind, swell and tide are not quite right at the beach, but Rod Jones is a satisfied surfer. Better known as Dr Surf to listeners of radio station 3RRR, Jones sits on a creaking, weathered cane chair besides the pool at his Mt Eliza house flipping through old magazines where he identifies waves and recognises surfers. Inside his house there are surfboards in various rooms, they’re perched on the top of book cases, stashed on the floor behind couches, stored in purpose-built racks and decoratively hung…