Thanks Valerie Stahl for writing in “Apollo Bay News”
about the 10 year program to maintain/upgrade
the Barham River Road.
It was challenging raising our three kids on that “treacherous”
end of the road. We loved the bush, but my kids were bullied
on their first school day. In the 1940’s my father-in-law George
drove his kids 10 kms to school, waiting in town for the last bell.
The Minister for Education said teach them to drive themselves
with a horse and jinka. George refused. Hence the school bus.
That innocent little creek rises up to 3 metres in flood
and doesn’t hesitate to wash out crappy shire bridges.
Just short of the 360 degree turn back to town it was
a federal government that built our decent public bridge.
I guess we wouldn’t have had a road at all if it weren’t for
the interests in the disastrous Otways logging industry.
Can’t help laughing how the pirates of Colac can’t
read the calendar. Fancy advertising “Caruso to Carreras”
to be held in COPACC the evening before Apollo Bay News
hits the streets. We must have paid enough rates to
subsidise an opera house, but we don’t even have a PACC.
But we can pack the senior citizens’ hall to the rafters,
council meetings often providing the best laughs of all.
I guess holiday house owners usually don’t bother to vote.
And that’s actually excruciating, not funny at all.