This one almost slipped past our attention - on the other side of the bay, the very popular Sunnyside beach has also made the media, and we’re not even into summer yet!!

The quick summary - Sunnyside has the same issue as Pt Impossible, being that inappropriate behaviour occurs in the car park and toilets, but NOT on the beach itself!! The police comment was quite succinct - “Sunnyside is a family beach and this behaviour will not be tolerated”

Keep in mind that Sunnyside is actually 2 beaches next to each other - the clothed beach is directly in front of the carpark and the nude beach is a good 200m walk around the corner to the right, over rocks at high tide. It’s interesting to note that the behaviour of concern is so close to the
clothed beach, perhaps suggesting that a nearby nude beach has nothing to do with the problems, but the seclusion of the carpark and toilets are the real cause???

Studies have been done into methods of managing coastal areas to make them unattractive to inappropriate behaviour - ideas like better lighting, regular patrols, access management - all make for a safer beach for all users. There is not a single study (that we are aware of) that states “inappropriate behaviour will cease when nude beaches are closed”… but feel free to send articles through to us if our research is incomplete!!

Click on this link to read the full article ->
No more sleaze please at Mt Eliza beach

And a reminder to everyone as we head into summer - police on both sides of the bay want to hear from beach users who witness inappropriate (and illegal) activity. We need the assistance of all law-abiding beach users (clothed or not!) to stand up for your facilities and do you bit to protect
them. The last thing we need as a community is another fight to save a clothing optional beach from closure!! And of course, behave yourselves on the beach this summer - check the code of etiquette on the FAQ/Links pages as a refresher!!

In an article today in the Geelong Advertiser, the Surf Coast Shire Council is proposing a number of bans and fines for various activities across the Surf Coast over summer. Included amongst items like smoking and drinking from glass containers is a little one-liner putting a $100 fine up for people caught in the dunes at Pt Impossible.

An interesting idea no doubt, although we do wonder how successful enforcement will be - while last summer the Vic Police patrols of the beach were greatly appreciated, they don’t go in the dunes. Still, definitely a step in the right direction, since the car park and the dunes have always been acknowledged as the problem areas (and not the nude beach itself, which starts at the foot of the dunes).

Check this ink for the details.

We’re heading rapidly into another season of great weather and the prospect of quality time at the beach is putting a smile on our dials!! And contrary to all appearances, we’ve been busy in preparation for the season ahead as well!! A couple of things have changed, and there’s more to come!!

First, the site has been upgraded - we know it doesn’t look like it, but it has had a major rework under the hood and is now the latest version of pretty much everything. The site theme will change next, and the menus will be cleaned up as well.  We ask that you give us some feedback if you notice any strange behavior - we’ve tested everything as much as we can, but there’s nothing like real user activity to immediately discover the issues!!

Second, new user registration has been turned back on!! It now features new security and anti-spam features to resolve the issues we had with automated user registration - we think it was a tricky spam bot, but no comment posts were ever made so the impact was basically zero.

That’s about it for now - expect more regular updates as the weather warms up, and don’t be surprised if the format of the site changes a little under your feet over the coming weeks. Feedback always welcome!!

Apologies to all new readers of this site if you wanted to register your details - we’ve had to temporarily disable new user registrations. It looks like an automated system of some sort has figured out how to create new users - there’s been no loss of data or damage to the site, and the new users have not even tried to post anything!!

At first we thought we had become suddenly popular, but a closer look revealed some interesting patterns in the “random” names!! Never fear, user registration will be back before long. The site is due for a refresh anyway, and coming up to summer could be the ideal time to give our little home on the web a spring clean!!

If you desperately want to register, it is still possible - just drop us a note on the links page and we will manually create your account.

This article was forwarded to us recently, and it reminded us of warmer days!!

World Travel Guides - Everybody Get Naked!

Check out the reader comments as well, an interesting read!!