Walkerville Victoria Australia Foreshore Committee Residents Ratepayers Association Friends Of Walkerville Blue Water Boat Club jamesnixon james nixon

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Read what people have to say on the issue of 'What to do about the boats' and other issues by clicking the Other Ideas button

Most of these link buttons will take you to the relevant bodies. Just click on them and see which ones work

This link works but, since the site is four years old, the Department has changed its name again. This is a thing that Australian Government Departments do when they have too much money. They spend it on new logos and signs. Ad agencies love them.

This link works takes you to the Shire's excellent site.

This link works takes you to the Blue Water Boat club's site.

This link doesn't work yet, if you know of their site, please email me.

Boats

The busiest day of the year, 28th December, the South Walkerville Car Park stretches for nearly a kilometre.

Meanwhile, at North Walkerville, the power lines are more of an eyesore than the trailers ... they never go home.

The residents hate the noise of the tractor early in the morning ... and ask: "Is it safe to have people riding IN the boats and ON the tractor mudguards whilst on the public road?"

'NO SEAT, NO RIDE' is normally a safer policy.

Download the free ACROBAT READER here if you are having troubles reading the .pdf files.

©jamesnixon2004

james@jamesnixon.com

G'day.

It's approaching the March 31st 2006 extended deadline for people to read the document on the right and send a proposal to the Foreshore Committee.

Four years after the Easter Saturday 2002 meeting of the Walkerville Ratepayers and Residents Association Inc, where the matter of boat launching from the beach was discussed. Again, the issue raised emotions.

At that meeting this site was suggested as a repository of information about the area and as a location where the various arguments could be showcased.

You are invited to have your say on the OTHER IDEAS page, but since this is a moderated site, any slanderous comments will be edited. Submissions should include your name and if you are commenting as a member of a particular organisation. Please be careful about ‘winding-up’ readers, slanging-off won’t solve the problem.

To stop you receiving unwarranted attention, your email addresses will not be printed unless you write: "INCLUDE MY EMAIL ADDRESS" in your email to me.

In time I hope to have all important documents here, as well as links to all the parties.

Check back soon, this is a living site.

James Nixon

30th March 2002

(March 2005 ... still no submissions!)

(March 2006 here are documents)

March 2006 Reflections

The tiny fishing village of Walkerville, ooh, hang on.... can't say that.

Fishing Village ... mmmm.

We used to be a fishing village; home to Dena and Brigadoon cray boats, Cadeques, Ab-Normal, Ab-Stractor and Slurp abalone boats among many others.

But sadly that title has gone. It appears to be politically incorrect to like boats at the moment.

The anti-boating discussion seems to be led by people who can’t have had a complete education. After all, how could anyone who was taught this at seven years of age be any different?

“There is nothing -- absolutely nothing -- half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats. In or out of 'em, it doesn't matter. Nothing seems really to matter, that's the charm of it. Whether you get away, or whether you don't; whether you arrive at your destination or whether you reach somewhere else, or whether you never get anywhere at all, you're always busy, and you never do anything in particular; and when you've done it there's always something else to do, and you can do it if you like, but you'd much better not."

[Spoken by Ratty to Mole in Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame]

I feel sorry for people who have never gazed lovingly at Walkerville from the Number Two Whiting Spot, and felt that rattatatat of a King George taking a Venus Bay crab.

Some of us think that Walkerville by land is the most spectacular place on earth, but it pales when compared to looking at Walkerville, just after sunrise, at high tide from half a mile off Gairs.

There must be room at Walkerville for all of us to coexist peacefully … to try to achieve each one’s life ambition. It is important to look far into the future to see how we can accommodate all the groups’ ambitions. We all need to feel winners.

My life ambition is to have a little boat, like the one I saw lying in the soft sand at Gair’s Beach when I was a nipper.

It wasn’t a very grandiose boat. It was a heavy white clinker boat and I think it had a racy red stripe. No trailer, you had to use inflatable rubber rollers and brute strength to go to sea in those days.

But it had the best name of any boat afloat … Slopalong Placidly.

I don’t have a boat anymore, and that bloody tractor going past at six in the morning really annoys me.

But I will defend, to the death, the right of any seven year old kid to be given the chance to watch the sunrise over Walkerville from the Number Two Whiting Spot off Gairs.

Lucky bastard.

South Walkerville Beach

Traditionally the busiest day of the year: 27th December. It's 32 degrees - the place packed, and Jim the Car Parking King has everything under control at South Walkerville Beach - congratulations to the Foreshore Committee.

The Cornish Coast

For years people have likened Walkerville to 'England's Cornish Coast' - so we sent a photographer along to test the theory. Here it is, complete with Tony Landy's paddocks up top ... Looe, in Cornwall - just west of Plymouth. All it needs is Bird Rock.

Wind Farms

Please download and read this paper from the ANU's Centre For Sustainable Energy Systems written some time ago by Andrew Blakers. It gives you some background information about wind farms ... Click HERE. But it isn't the full story.

There is evidence to argue that solar power is a cheaper and MUCH more effective solution, plus it could be technology that Australia owns - rather than importing machinery and building heavily subsidised farms. (see the WEB Blog on the www.jamesnixon.com home page).

Tim Le Roy is an expert on the issues and has an e-newsletter about the Bald Hills Wind Farm proposal. Click the email link below to be put on his mailing list:

timeleroy@optusnet.com.au

CLICK ON EACH DOCUMENT TO READ