Peter Goers: The Victor Harbor of my childhood has changed for the worse

WIND may be slowly eroding the granite at Victor Harbor but the coastal township’s charm is being eroded much quicker.

Jaimi Griffen, of Encounter Bay, and pet dog Tully were among a huge number of surfers and paddle-boarders who, in January, protested against plans to allow a tuna pen installed near Granite Island. Picture: Tom Huntley

Victor Harbor – wish you were here. The nostalgia I feel for Victor is as potent as its sea breeze.

I’m old enough to have gone there on the train from Adelaide. Victor is the old rite of passage of praying the old car would make it up the old Willunga Hill road, guesthouses, fish ’n’ chips, ice-cream dripping on thongs and, as a kiddie, not being allowed to use the grey mariah of the tractor-pulled trolley across the causeway to Granite Island because my grandmother said “It is a waste of sixpence when we have perfectly good legs”.

The penguins were plentiful, free to see and called “fairy” not “little”.

Since the only constant is change, there’s been a lot of it in Victor – but the pink and grey granite is constant. Eternal.

The putt-putt golf went, the grand old Crown Hotel lost its grand character, The Bluff was developed with ticky-tacky housing and the Whaling Museum and tea house were lost.

The chairlift was excised from Granite Island and the wallabies were evicted. The seals ate the penguins. Retirees and agapanthus invaded Victor. Sub-divisions are now subdivided as petunias bloom outside little houses holding the big dream.

Jaimi Griffen, of Encounter Bay, and pet dog Tully were among a huge number of surfers and paddle-boarders who, in January, protested against plans to allow a tuna pen installed near Granite Island. Picture: Tom Huntley

The wind erodes the granite but charm is eroded much quicker.

Last Saturday morning I was crossing a street in Victor as a car sped up towards me and it’s driver screamed “It’s a f---ing road!” Welcome to Victor.

There were gleeful kiddies having an Easter egg hunt in Ocean St on Saturday – not on Easter Sunday. It’s this kind of social dislocation that leads to gay marriage.

The current paradox of Victor Harbor is unnecessary development while tourists are left foundering on the rocks which are many – both the tourists and the rocks. Rosetta Cove gleams in the lee of The Bluff, protected by a reef and presided over by princely pelicans.

The Victor Harbor Council has built a monstrous four-lane boat ramp, trailer car park and breakwater in this little cherished bay. The reason given was to facilitate rescue vessels which wouldn’t be needed if the council wasn’t madly encouraging boating in the perilous Encounter Bay.

On Easter Monday, there was one boat trailer at The Bluff Boat Ramp at 8.18am. One. There were 11 users on Saturday morning. Now the council and the State Government will throw another $750,000 at the boat ramp for a holding pontoon and an enormous boat trailer car park. Pave paradise and put up a parking lot.

This car park will consume a beach and nudge a 64 million-year-old glacial rock formation (oops, 5000 years for the many creationists at Victor). From Whaler’s Inn, you’ll have a lovely view of asphalt.

Disgusted, I left Victor and went overseas to Granite Island. What a dump! The same council and State Government throwing money at blowhard boaties are neglecting SA’s most popular tourist attraction.

I’m astonished by the thousands of foreign tourists all over the island and the babble of languages on the rock of ages.

The horse-drawn tram operating between Victor Harbor and Granite Island. Picture: Tourism SA

The wonderful old concrete stairs, nooks, wind-breaks and penguins have gone. The kiosk, restaurant and shop have closed. Fortunately, the toilets are open and one pop-up caterer is doing his best to cater for the hordes.

The council and the government want a tuna cage off Granite Island. Who wants to swim with tuna? The powers that be hope that the tuna cage entrepreneur will take over the catering, the loos, the shop, the horse tram and the whale centre.

Oceanographers are so often good with horses and cappuccinos. If the tuna cage operation fails, all is lost – again.

This is the privatisation of Granite Island – a national park. What’s next? Trained killer whales, diving with sharks? Thousands have rallied against the tuna cage.

Why sacrifice a beautiful environment for car parks. Leaving Victor, there are roadworks with conflicting speed limits – 25km/h and 40km/h. Confused? Go slow.

That’s why we come to Victor to slow down and share its charms with all – not just bumptious boaties.

Peter Goers can be heard weeknights on 891 ABC Adelaide

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HOT

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NOT

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■ Continuity with change