Ding ding

Metcard had been switched off.

The ‘safety’ zone tram stop on Epsom Road in Ascot Vale was copping a beating.

Route 19, 57 and 19 passengers didn’t have any platform stops along Elizabeth Street.

And the Colonial Tramcar Restaurant was still running lunch and dinner tours of Melbourne.

And trains

Evening peak would see massive crowds of pedestrians waiting to cross Spencer Street at Collins Street.

While on Friday nights, the queues would be at the V/Line booking office, waiting to buy a paper ticket.

South Yarra station was also becoming surrounded by new apartment blocks, but the single station entrance was struggling to cope – a problem not addressed until 2020.

But Footscray was getting an expanded station as part of the Regional Rail Link project.

The near-new footbridge demolished to make room for two additional platforms.

And Metro had unveiled a new infrastructure inspection train, in an attempt to address a spate of overhead wire failures crippling the rail network.

Things that are gone

Melbourne Bike Share was still operating.

One of the operational costs being the need to resupply bikes to empty stands.

Remember the “My Family” sticker fad? By 2013 they were on the way out.

Heritage listed public toilet on Queen Street? It was decommissioned in June 2013 and capped with concrete.

Horse drawn carriages leaving a trail of horse crap across the Melbourne CBD? They’re finally banned.

And Phillip Island

I headed out to Phillip Island, to look for the remains of the Summerland Estate. The only trace – a few dirt tracks.

I also made a detour to Pyramid Rock.

Which looked like the name suggested.

And on the way back I found a radio tower out in a paddock.

Turns out it was a non-directional beacon (NDB) used as an aviation navigational aid.

It was decommissioned in 2016 thanks to the popularity of GPS based navigation technology in general aviation.

Footnote

Here you can find the rest of my ‘photos from ten years ago‘ series.

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New trains

Brand new X’Trapolis trains were still being built – and I found some of the body shells waiting on the wharf at Appleton Dock after being imported from Poland.

Production of these trains ended a few years ago, future orders being High Capacity Metro Trains for the Pakenham, Cranbourne and Sunbury lines, and the upcoming X’Trapolis 2.0 for the rest of the network.

V/Line was also buying shiny new trains, with VLocity set VL49 having just entered service.

These trains continue to roll off the production line at Bombardier Dandenong, with 18 more still on order.

Meanwhile for the residents of North East Victoria, they finally got their rail service back after two and a half years.

With the first V/Line standard gauge train to Albury running, after the completion of the North East Rail Revitalisation Project.

But the end result left much to be desired – the service is as unreliable as ever, with spare trains needing to be thrown at the service, more money needing to be sunk into the track , and the promise of brand new VLocity trains dangled as a silver bullet.

Replacement buses

Out at Albion station I found a temporary footbridge that had been erected between platform and car park.

At Flemington Racecourse a “temporary” bus interchange was taking shape in the car park.

And between the two, a bus lane along Ballarat Road.

The reason – train replacement buses on the Sunbury line to allow works on the Regional Rail Link project to take place.

Unfortunately the lessons from this project like dedicated interchange bridges and bus lanes have been rejected on many projects since – buses getting stuck in traffic instead.

A level crossing

Meanwhile, level crossing removals were happening before the Level Crossing Removal Authority existed – Kororoit Creek Road in Altona North was getting a road over rail bridge.

The level crossing removal was part of a $48.5 million road duplication project, unlike some subsequent projects that built new level crossings.

A not so random clock

I paid a visit to Scienceworks, and found a clock outside the museum.

Built in 1882 for the original Flinders Street Station, in 2014 found a new home – Southern Cross Station, where it was placed atop a new stand then covered in advertising.

And away from the tracks

And we end the month down at Phillip Island on the Summerland Peninsula.

Once the site of Summerlands Estate.

But after a 25 year government buyback program, the last remaining houses were being demolished.

Allowing the land to be returned to nature as penguin habitat.

Footnote

Here you can find the rest of my ‘photos from ten years ago‘ series.

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Melway Edition 22 Map 431 (1993)

Paying a visit to Summerlands

It took me until 2011 to finally visit Summerlands in person.

The views were fantastic.

But all I found was a ghost town.

Gravel tracks leading into the scrub.

And a handful of abandoned houses.

Ready to be demolished.

So what happened?

Google Maps satellite imagery (2016)

A history of Summerlands

Subdivision of Summerlands commenced in the 1920s with 12 large allotments created, along with features such as a roundabout and cypress trees that were still visible decades later. Between 1927 and 1931, 227 new blocks were created, and from 1929 to 1940 there was a nine-hole golf course on what is now the Penguin Parade car park.

Photo from the Phillip Island and District Historical Society collection

In 1950s, a further 437 blocks were created, and the final subdivisions were carried out in 1958 and 1961 on land closer to The Nobbies. Much of the land was sold to speculators rather than those interested in building on it, and by 1974 only 11 percent of the 986 blocks of land had been cleared or built on.

Phillip Island Nature Parks photo

By the 1970s it was recognised that residential development of the estate would threaten the adjacent penguin colony, but it was not until 1985 that the Victorian Government launched the “Summerland Estate Buy-Back Programme” to purchase all 774 allotments on the Summerland Peninsula and add them to the Phillip Island Nature Park, with a projected end date of 2000. This decision meant that land owners could not build on their land, improve their properties, or sell them to anyone but the Government.

In the years that followed a total of 732 properties were been voluntarily sold by their owners, at a cost to the government of around a million dollars a year.

Phillip Island Nature Parks photo

With the final push made in 2007, when the decision was made to compulsorily acquire the final 42 properties – 20 empty blocks and 22 with houses, held by 34 private owners – over the next three years, at a cost of $15 million.

Bass Coast Planning Scheme – Public Acquisition Overlay at Summerlands Estate as of 23 May 2007

A tour of the last remaining houses

In February 2008 the Google Street View car did the rounds of Summerlands Estate, capturing the last remaining houses.

Classic 1950s fibro beach houses.

1970s brick.

Or looking to have been built just before the 1985 land buyback.

Some were out in the middle of an empty plain.

Others nestled between the tea trees.

Or hidden away completely.

Some looking to be only used at holiday time.

Others looking like they were occupied year round.

With neat front gardens.

But some had already been demolished.

And the end

In 2007-08 five property purchases were settled and agreement to purchase one property was reached, along with six negotiated purchase offers and one offer for compulsory acquisition. In 2008-09 fourteen properties were purchased taking the total number to 25, leaving 17 properties still to be acquired, a process completed in June 2010.

Land Victoria showing Summerlands Estate land still under separate titles as of 13 June 2011

At the time of my 2011 visit, the Summerlands Estate was being returned to nature.

The roads had been closed to vehicles.

Few houses remained.

Excavators at work clearing them away.

Leaving behind a front fence.

Gardens.

An empty block where houses once stood.

Building rubble.

Ready for new tree plantings.

Introduced trees has been ringbarked.

Slowly killing them.

Before their eventual removal.

Power lines were also being removed.

Replaced by new underground wires.

And farewell

I drove past the house on the hill in 2011.

By 2013 the only trace left was a plot of freshly planted trees.

I wonder how it looks a decade on.

Further reading

• Govt forces penguin reserve land buyback (ABC News, 2007)
• When Phillip Island penguins won, and land owners lost (ABC News, 2018)
• To Save Tiny Penguins, This Suburb Was Wiped Off the Map (New York Times, 2019)
• Summerlands Rehabilitation Project (Phillip Island Nature Parks, 2015)
• Department of Sustainability and Environment. “Annual Report 2008 – Report of Operations”
• Department of Sustainability and Environment. “Annual Report 2009 – Report of Operations”

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Located on the south-western tip of the island at Summerland Beach, the Penguin Parade is one of Australia’s most popular wildlife attractions, with almost half a million people visiting each year. To cater for these hoards of tourists, floodlights illuminate the beach in front of concrete viewing terraces, and a network of boardwalks have been constructed over the sand dunes so that the delicate environment beneath is protected.

While today’s Penguin Parade is a big budget production, this postcard from 1940 shows a very different scene at Summerland Beach. It was an age of little environmental concern, when parking cars on the delicate penguin burrows was not given a second thought, and introduced foxes and pet dogs killed dozens of penguins.

Photo from the Phillip Island and District Historical Society collection

The first organised trips to see the Summerland Beach penguins occurred in 1928, when local residents Bert West, Bern Denham and Bert Watchorn started to pick up visitors at the Cowes ferry pier and take them on a tour of the island for five shillings. However it was not until the 1940 opening of a bridge to the mainland that tourism to the island really took off, and so did the environment damage caused by the hoards of visitors.

The first efforts to protect the penguin colony date to 1930, when four hectares of land on the Summerland Peninsula was given to the people of Victoria by Mr and Mrs Spencer Jackson as a penguin reserve. Additional land was added to the reserve soon after by the Phillip Island Shire Council, with further land added in 1955, and formal regulations for the reserve being gazetted in 1956. Development of tourist infrastructure commenced in 1961 when fences and concrete viewing stands were erected along the beach, with the involvement of the National Parks and Wildlife Service.

Today management of the facilities is the responsibility of the Phillip Island Nature Parks, a not-for-profit body created by the State Government to conserve and protect the flora and fauna reserves of the island. The current facilities at Summerland Beach date to 1988 when a major redevelopment was carried out, with the opening of a visitor centre and carpark a few hundred metres away from the sand dunes, enlarged viewing terraces on the beach, and a network of boardwalks to link the two.

With the park receiving no recurrent operational funding from the government, Phillip Island Nature Parks is reliant on income from tourist operations to fund their activities. In 2007/08 the total operating revenue was almost $14 million, when a total of 487,251 people visited the penguin parade, with 63% of them being international tourists. With the competing interests of wildlife conservation and increasing the number of visitors, management needs to walk a fine line to avoid destroying the very reason for the park existing.

And an update

In 2016 it was announced that an upgraded visitors centre would be built at the Penguin Parade, at a cost of $48.2 million.

The new complex opening in July 2019.

Along with an upgraded ‘premium’ viewing area.

Sources

• History of the Penguin Parade from the ABC program ‘Penguin Island’
• History of the Summerland Peninsula by Roz Jessop, Environment Manager at the Phillip Island Nature Parks
• The potential impacts of climate change on the Phillip Island Little Penguin colony, a report from 2009
• Strategic Management Plan 2012–2017, Phillip Island Nature Parks
• Annual Report 2009/2010, Phillip Island Nature Parks

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