Mark Robertson

Bigger - or better?

25/1/2024

The developers are eyeing the prize and working out how to maximise the carve-up.

By Mark Robertson

THE announcement of 5000 new houses and an extra 12,000 people for Wonthaggi will have a huge impact on the character and future of our town, virtually doubling the size and population.

I hope this expansion has been planned carefully so the character and liveability of old Wonthaggi is retained and enhanced, not swallowed by a plague of big houses on small blocks, corporate warehouses full of largely unnecessary “goods” and poorly thought out access roads.

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Lowest prices are just the beginning

20/4/2023

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Herds of metal dinosaurs lumber across the landscape, issuing plaintive beeps, as if calling for mates.

By Mark Robertson

POST readers visiting Wonthaggi recently could not fail to notice the new green behemoth rising from the site of the old Miners’ Rest Hotel-Motel. The associated road works are – how would you say it? – extensive.

I live directly opposite the White Road/McKenzie Street intersection, so I’ve had a ringside seat for the big build. The size and speed of it is both fascinating and horrifying.

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Here be dragons - and cows

23/3/2021

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By Mark Robertson

ONE evening, Pablo Picasso and Salvador Dali got together for a session of drinking absinthe and magic mushroom tea. Once suitably inspired, they decided on a challenge: who could design the most outlandish and bizarre fish? This is what they came up with.

Weedy Seadragon, Flinders, Western Port, 2007. Photo: Sascha Schultz / iNaturalist.org. by Attribution-Non Commercial

Ornate Cowfish male. Photo: Julian Finn. Museums Victoria

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When blood turns bad

14/5/2020

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Mark Robertson (in dentist’s chair) has a chemo session in
Wonthaggi Hospital. For Mark, the local cancer clinic ends
20 years of trekking to the city for treatment.

By Mark Robertson

WE’RE all familiar with blood … each of us contains several litres of the red stuff. Vampires find it delectable and if it all leaks out you die.

But there is far more to this vital fluid than that. Blood is a complex mixture of red and white calls, minerals, salts, hormones and much more. It transports gases around the body, removes waste products from every cell, attacks foreign invading bacteria and viruses and helps us to regulate temperature. Basically it is an all-purpose wonder fluid, a marvel of the evolutionary process – lifeblood.

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Catch my drift?

20/6/2019

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Parallel worlds exist unnoticed alongside our own, but too often the creatures that inhabit them are dismissed as by-products or even impurities

By Mark Robertson

DECEMBER 6 was a cracker of a day – hot and sunny, light breeze and a dropping tide, perfect for a boat trip. My son had the afternoon off work so after lunch we launched at Cape Paterson. A lazy swell was foaming against the rocks as we headed around to the surf beach.

It soon became apparent that nature was taking a rest. No silvery flashes of baitfish, no contact calls from foraging penguins, no stingrays poking around the sand holes. A lone gannet – usually the most focussed and alert of seabirds – was lazily patrolling for prey. You could almost sense the boredom in its keen eye.

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Coastal follies

1/11/2018

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Mahers Landing, on the shores of the Anderson Inlet, is the site of a proposed marina and residential development

By Mark Robertson

HERE’S a question for Post readers. What’s Bass Coast’s most endangered species? The orange bellied parrot, the bandicoot or the southern right whale? We humans should be chuffed that such rare and spectacular organisms are still to be found locally, despite our best attempts to consign them to extinction. In fact, the mantle of our “most critically endangered” species belongs to a tiny fish.

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Mud between the toes

3/8/2018

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Mahers Landing is no place for millionaires’ yachts, but it has plenty of riches for those who are willing to see.

By Mark Robertson

WHEN you first arrive at the Mahers Landing carpark, you might be underwhelmed. There’s a basic boat ramp, a fish cleaning table, a navigation beacon and a toilet block. At high tide there’s an expanse of water with Venus Bay on the distant shore. At low tide, you can see expansive mudflats dissected by sinuous channels. This is Andersons Inlet, the estuary of the Tarwin River.

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Villain or victim?

16/2/2018

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A smooth stingray, Port Phillip Bay. Photo:
Sarah Speight / Flickr.

Thanks to Steve Irwin, stingrays have an image problem. Mark Robertson delves deeper.

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Dance of the angels

14/12/2017

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Observing his aquarium, Mark Robertson realises that love and lust are powerful emotions, no matter what the species.

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Up close and natural

22/9/2017

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Discus fish by Drriss & Marrionn

You don’t have to go far from home to observe the splendours of nature, writes Mark Robertson.

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Tunnellers and burrowers

16/2/2017

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A Giant Gippsland Earthworm peeks out from its exposed burrow. Photo Dr Beverley Van Praagh

By Mark Robertson

OUR Bass Coast is rich in varied habitats – beaches, remnant bushland, estuaries, farmland and urban environments support varied and, often, rare species.
One habitat which is often literally overlooked is the subterranean world which stretches from the subtidal through to the lofty Bass hills. All sports of creatures excavate and inhabit our rich soils – including us humans.

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Time and tide

19/11/2016

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Muttonbird wreck. Photo: Venus Bay Observation Project

By Mark Robertson

EACH day the high tides deliver a new treasure trove to our golden beaches (anyone remember what was written at the entrance of Wonthaggi?). The physics of our moon and sun interpose to cover our shores with a new strandline, each one slightly unique. Add in the barometric readings, wind direction and strength, and the sheer uniqueness of each high tide is apparent.

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Ocean delights

16/8/2016

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Illustration of paper nautilus" (Argonauta) by Philip Henry Gosse, from Natural History: Mollusca (1854)

By Mark Robertson

BACK in the olden days (the `60s and `70s), the centrepiece of many homes was the china cabinet, a glass-fronted tomb containing all the special and delicate treasures one accumulated and displayed: Royal Doulton figurines, special teacups and saucers, curios from the P&O cruise to the far east, and those strange silver-plated cake tongs, the least-used device ever invented.

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Release the Kraken!

16/7/2016

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The kraken, Engraving by Edward Etherington, 1887

By Mark Robertson
July 16, 2016

IF I were to design a totally alien species – given my formative childhood diet of B-grade sci-fi, James Bond and The Three Stooges – it would consist of writhing tentacles, green blood, huge eyes capable of ultra-violet vision, multiple hearts, a voracious parrot beak, jet propulsion, smokescreens, and the ability to change colour instantly.

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Echidna encounters

18/6/2016

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Echidna at Harmers Haven. Photo: Leonie Smith

By Mark Robertson

MY FIRST echidna encounter for the season was in October – the Saturday of the Moto GP. I was enjoying a great coffee at the Hicksborough store, watching the motorbikes heading towards Phillip Island, when a lady stopped her car suddenly. An echidna had decided to cross the Bass Highway. Soon the traffic had halted, waiting for it to decide whether to wander across the busy road or attempt to burrow into the warm bitumen. A motorcyclist picked it up (leather gloves have more than one use) and deposited it on the "nature strip", and the traffic once more flowed.

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