Week 9 Saturday 28 July to Friday 3 August
Photo by Rodger Young
Okay, so this wasn’t the scene down at Will beach during the past week’s swimming. It is Williamstown beach, though. February 1996. I was there with our young family. And hundreds of others.
The rather large object very slowly making its way along the Esplanade is called a catlytic converter. No, I don’t know what that means either. But it was on its way from a ship at Williamstown to the Altona oil refinery: a journey of about five kilometres that took five prime movers and a few days’ work, including removing power lines temporarily.
Rodger Young’s excellent photo shows that Willi beach can get fairly crowded on a warm day. But what about the white-hatted chap in the foreground on the right hand side? Did he miss all the action?
Shaun Tan’s wonderful 2008 book Tales From Outer Suburbia features an illustration based on the photo below. Shaun Tan calls the rather large object The Amnesia Machine.
Herald Sun, Monday 26 February 1996
