Well at last some Queensland weather, periods of heavy rain, sunshine and humidity, what more could one ask for except being in Queensland itself.
Lots to talk about today from family history to military and bike paths.
First off bike paths I think, the government is putting in 1.2 million dollars to upgrade the Main Yarra Trail on the Yarra Boulevard. Work is underway on the 134 kilometre rail trail to Mansfield, Victoria's biggest rail trail project. A 22k bike path from the Paterson River to Moorooduc will be built as part of the $759M Peninsula Link project. In a sign of future trends, the City of Yarra is replacing car parking spaces with bike parking to improve parking efficiency and access to facilities. And if that is not enough; The start of the year has resulted in a sudden flood of people switching to the bike for the journey to the local railway station, according to data collected by the Parkiteer bike cage system (see above).
More than 100 people signed up to use Parkiteer cages in January which is a 25 per cent increase on the best month of 2009. In line with the growing demand, the number of Parkiteer bike cages at train stations has also increased. By the end of February there will be new cages at Ferntree Gully, Laverton, Noble Park and Nunawading train stations.
Laverton station will be only the second station (after Frankston) to have two cages installed. This is a great win for commuters in the area who have sent emails and letters to the Department of Transport requesting better bike parking facilities at the station. At Brighton Beach the introduction of the Parkiteer cage has seen 14 people previously driving to the station now riding. The balance of cage members were already riding or using other methods to get to the station.
This clearly shows the investment in the cages has more than paid off in health, congestion and parking benefits.
And best of all you can nominate the Benalla Station for one of these cages!
Now family history, a cousin has almost completed her family line, but just to be sure she has everything available she will be taking herself of to Mauritius to chase down information from there. The Australian States & Territories should get their act together and make a standard rate of extortion for their birth, death & marriage certificates. For a long time state governments paid little concern for family historians, but then they realized there were many thousands of people out there chasing their relatives and needing certificates to prove information. So guess what? the governments started raising the price they charged, and they are still doing so. As a result they are milking family historians for all they can get. Will they never learn it is better to give than receive!
Australia has been involved in many armed conflicts through-out it's short history, and whilst our governments like to use servicemen & women to make others conform to their ideals, they soon forget those men & women when the conflict ends. However there are now many people and organizations around the country that endeavor to preserve and show diverse items they have collected to the general public. These collections always need more items to be donated or made available to be purchased, so if you have unwanted items I'm sure they would be most grateful for a donation. In Benalla there are a few private collectors as well as the new air museum at the airport complex and now the RSL has taken on-board suggestions to display several items to the public. So for those interested in our military history there is now plenty of opportunities to view historic war memorabilia in and around Benalla.
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Travelers towing caravans around Australia should think twice about going to Benalla with their caravan. For more than ten years my partner and I fought to have the town allocate caravan parking areas for tourists, in the end there were two such spaces allotted, 'in a busy car-park'. It was pointed out to the relevant authorities that the spots are to small and to hard to park all but the smallest caravans. The caravan spots are some 300 plus meters from the present 'tourist information' building, never ideal for the elderly or in-firmed.
Another major problem facing caravaners is the fact that the council does not police the two caravan spots, but allows 'all and sundry' to park in these two spaces. It would appear that touists are not encouraged, in fact I have heard 'from the horses mouth' that the council didn't deem Benalla to be a tourist destination, and so didn't need to put in place any tourist infrastructure.
We have also tried for many years to have a tourist bike path put into place to join up those already in place,and being built, in other areas of the North East of Victoria. And the answer has consistently been 'we are not a tourist destination' or we haven't got the money. The Victorian Government has, over the past years, poured millions of dollars into other areas of the state for the very same type of bike paths as we have been wanting for Benalla.
So whilst there is a wonderful man-made lake in Benalla and other splendid tourist destinations in the area, think twice if you have a caravan or wish to cycle around the area.
Caravaners are generally a very astute group of people, and if the are not made welcome they 'go somewhere else' to spend their money. Benalla is missing out on an enormous amount of tourist dollars, and rightly so. So as I said, think twice before making Benalla a stop over.