By Gael Cresp 

IN SOME places there are trolls living underneath bridges. These creatures terrorise anyone who attempts to cross. They will eat you, or beat you, and steal all your gold. Many will attempt to trick their victims and the only way to escape is to trick them in return.

In Kilcunda we have, on various occasions, abseilers who hang underneath our trestle bridge and test every cross beam, piling, screw and bolt for safety, strength, and expected life span. We never know when they will be there and it’s quite a surprise to drive over the Bourne Creek Bridge and see someone dangling below the substructure of the adjacent old railway trestle bridge.

Between San Remo and Newhaven there is the Phillip Island Bridge.

Originally, a ferry took freight and passengers across, but in 1940 a suspension bridge was opened. This bridge had two traffic lanes but no allowance for foot traffic. There were six pedestrian refuges so folk could step aside safely to let motor traffic cross. 

Because this bridge was built with second-hand material, with the main suspension cable being re-used from a bridge on Sydney’s North Shore and the lower cables old tram cables, it had weight limits. This meant that passengers on buses bringing visitors to see the penguins had to disembark on the San Remo side and walk across the bridge while the bus travelled over empty. However, this requirement seemed only to be applied in daylight hours when the Inspector from the Country Roads Board was in attendance. After dark, when the CRB workers had gone home, buses returning from the Penguin Parade travelled back with passengers still aboard.

In 1966 John Holland and Company was awarded the contract to build a concrete bridge. Three years later the current two-lane one, with a separated pedestrian path, was opened. This system continues to operate and carries fresh water, sewage and electricity underneath.

That brings us to today. Over 50 years and millions of cars, trucks, bikes, the occasional horse, and people later the bridge has been exposed to storms, salt water and wave action plus the weight of the traffic. 

It is time for renovations. 

Nestled into the Phillip Island side there is now a row of brand-new shiny white huts, and a walkway with a ‘sail’ veranda. Beside them is a collection of scaffolding, equipment sheds and machinery. The engineers will work, and perhaps even live, eat, and sleep underneath the bridge, while undertaking essential maintenance and repairs. This task is expected to take two years to complete.

The Phillip Island Bridge is essentially the only way on and off the island, unless you have access to a boat or use the Ferry from Cowes to Stony Point.

Phillip Island Road is a single lane in each direction and so is the bridge (with the addition of a shared walking and bike track on one side)

There are currently no plans, not even in the fifty-to-one-hundred-year projections, to duplicate or replace this bridge. Indeed, it is hard to imagine where the space might be found to construct another bridge while keeping the current one.

So, this is my suggestion:

Drill a tunnel underground from San Remo to Newhaven, then turn the boring machine around and drill another one back. One tunnel in, one out: Echidna and Wombat or Penguin and Shearwater Tunnels.

Each tunnel should be two lanes wide so that, if there were an accident and, let’s face it, there is sure to be one, either tunnel could be closed and the other used for ingress and egress. 

The current bridge could then be closed to all motorised traffic with separate bike lanes on and off the island and wide pedestrian areas. And maybe even a café with an outdoor seating area for folk to watch the sunset over the water?

My vision has the tunnels beginning and ending on the Western Port side of Phillip Island Road beyond the Police Station. The machines would bore under the Narrows and along as far as the old runway on the aerodrome (approximately six kilometres) then turn around and drill back.

Goodness knows we’ve a lot of experience with tunnels in Victoria. Why not build on it? Then we can work on duplicating the road from San Remo to Anderson.