Regional Extra 060324

Joy travels the world

By LEAH ANDERSON-BYRNE

BRIGHT resident Graeme Joy has an impressive list of achievements under his belt, most of them accomplished outdoors and all of them focused on the strength of people working together.

Mr Joy was the first Australian to ski to both the North Pole, unguided, and solo to the Magnetic North Pole.

During this ‘Icewalk - The International North Pole Expedition’, he also helped develop its internationally renowned student expedition and education programs which were recognised and awarded by the United Nations Environment Program. But before that, he was the outdoor coordinator and joint deputy head at Timbertop Geelong Grammar School, and even before that he was a university student from Echuca.

“I went to the local primary and high school there, it was a very free range life as a country kid in the 1960s,” he said.

“After school I enrolled into Monash University to do law and then thought I’d like a year off, which was pretty unusual then.

“At the end of that year I ended up going into teaching at the Riverina College of Advanced Education in Wagga Wagga and gained a Bachelor of Education in geography and economics in 1978.

■ Continued page 6

PHOTO: Brodie Everist

The world’s smallest penguin

AUSTRALIA’S Little Penguin is the world’s smallest penguin.

A lightweight of just about 1kg, it is also called the Fairy Penguin.

By comparison, the Emperor Penguin, the largest of the world’s 18 penguin species, weighs up to 38 kg.

The Little Penguin’s Latin name Eudyptula minor means ‘good little diver’, an accurate description of this species.

With a body shaped like a torpedo, its wings transformed into flippers, and its plumage waterproof, the Little Penguin is perfectly adapted for life at sea.

All penguins live in the Southern Hemisphere, from the South Pole to the equatorial Galapagos Islands.

Australia’s own Little Penguin lives along the southern edge of mainland Australia and in Tasmania, and it also occurs in New Zealand and the Chatham Islands.

Most breeding pairs live in colonies, although some nest on their own.

Most colonies are on islands, with only scattered locations left on the mainland.

So, you are extremely unlikely to find one in your own backyard, but you can help keep them safe if they live nearby.

Their upper parts and back are greyish blue, while their underside is white.

This camouflage – something they have in common with the Great White Shark –makes them almost invisible from above as well as from below as they zoom through the water catching fish.

When they come ashore, however, the birds’ dark upper plumage stands out distinctively against the sand – one of the reasons why the Little Penguins wait until dark before they return to their burrows.

The penguins of Phillip Island, Victoria give visitors a nightly display during the pen-

with FNPW Backyard Buddies

guin parade.

Being somewhat clumsy and poorly camouflaged on land is not the only safety hazard in a Little Penguin’s life.

Their natural predators are leopard seals, sea lions, orcas and sea eagles who take the occasional penguin at sea.

What can really spell trouble for the breeding colonies though is a human neighbourhood with its noise, disturbance, development, weeds overgrowing their burrows, dogs and foxes.

In the water oil spills, damage to sea grass beds, plastic and other debris can become a hazard.

This Day in History, 1885

and launched a re-born Mansfield Courier.

Patience a virtue as we look for cooler autumn weather

AS the dry weather lingers on, I am super thankful for the summer rain that we had back in January and early February. The trout streams are all looking great for this time of the year thanks to that rain.

Many are quite low, but no lower than normal.

I went fly fishing in a tributary of the King River last week.

I saw quite a few trout, but they were all so reluctant to rise to my dry fly.

I caught one lovely brown on a fly called a Half Down Hopper and lost another fish and that was it.

The rest of the fish just sat under my fly with defiant looks on their faces.

with Rob Alexander WANGARATTA

I am almost certain that the water was just far too warm in that particular stream.

Next time I will head further up into the headwaters in search of cooler water.

As we head into autumn the water will start to cool down and hopefully the trout will become a lot more active.

Reports of redfin being

caught at Lake Hume are few and far between, however I have heard of a few Murray cod being caught in the lake as well as some quite large yellowbelly.

The cod have mostly been around the 50 - 65cm range, give or take a bit and have all been caught as a by-catch by anglers targeting redfin and yellowbelly with smaller lures.

I have had two reports from Lake William Hovell this week of very slow fishing with just a couple of small redfin being caught.

I suspect that the fishing will improve up there over the next couple of months as it often does in autumn.

◆ GOTCHA: A nice brown trout caught in a tributary of the King River on a dry fly called a Half Down Hopper last week.

◆ FAIRY PENGUIN: The Little Penguin is commonly seen on Phillip Island and is the world's smallest penguin.

Beechworth Bakery: A delicious legacy spanning four decades

IN 1984, Tom O’Toole started a family-owned business with just six team members.

The Beechworth Bakery soon became a beloved spot for foodies in regional Victoria and New South Wales.

Over the years, the business has grown, and Beechworth Bakery now has eight bakeries and employs around 300 staff members.

After retiring, Tom passed the leadership to Marty Matassoni, who now co-owns the bakeries with Tom and continues to uphold the legacy of excellent food and service.

Marty’s journey is inspiring.

At the age of 13, his father sent him to work at Tom’s bakery.

Although Marty’s parents owned a shoe shop across the road, it was at the bakery where he discovered his passion for baking.

He started with simple tasks like cracking eggs and peeling onions, but he quickly learned the ropes of the bakery business.

After embarking on a journey of self-discovery, Marty returned to the bakery in 2001 thanks to Tom’s unwavering support.

In 2006, he became the managing director and played a pivotal role in opening the second bakery in Echuca.

Beechworth Bakery has been expanding over the years due to high customer demand and their commitment to providing quality products made in-house by their team, along with excellent customer service.

Currently, Beechworth Bakery operates in six other locations, including Albury, Bendigo, Ballarat, Healesville, Yackandandah and Bright.

The bakery has remained family-owned by Tom and Marty, and it continues to thrive with the unwavering support of Marty’s wife, Jo, and two children.

As the bakery approaches its 40th anniversary, a year-long celebration is planned, which will culminate in the Beechworth Bakery Street Festival on Saturday, October 19.

Join Marty, Tom, their families, and the entire Beechworth Bakery team as they celebrate this significant milestone with a year full of festivities honouring food, community, and the enduring spirit of Beechworth Bakery.

LOCAL FLAVOURS

LONG LEGACY: Owners Jo and Marty Matassoni are proud to be part of the Beechworth Bakery legacy.

PEACH (52)

Joy travels the world

■ From page 1

“At the end of my degree the NSW education department didn’t have a spot for me but I discovered outdoor education and managed to get one of the annual 15 international placements at I M Marsh College in Liverpool.

“I then moved to the United States running programs for the American camp system before I returned to Australia and worked for the ACT schools authority in swimming.

“Between the ages of 24 to 30, I ran the outdoor program at Geelong Grammar’s Timbertop and became joint deputy of the campus.

“I then left and went to ANU to do a masters in education but got sidetracked and went to

Greenland on a sea kayak expedition.”

The 800km yacht trip in 1986 raised $400,000 for an exhibition and film and was the first of many huge expeditions across the world.

As a young man, Mr Joy had also taken part in a number of ski tours and kayaking races including the Devizes to Westminster UK 125 miles kayak race and a six week ski mountaineering expedition in the Spanish Pyrenees in 1979 and the Jagungal Jaunt ski tour in 1982 from Thredbo to Jagungal return in eight days.

“I came back to Australia and continued to work in outdoor education before getting involved in an idea for a North Pole expedition and teaming up with a crew of seven others,” he said.

“Over a couple years we put together the plan and then myself, Dr Mikhail Malakov, Angus Cockney, Rupert Summerson, Arved Fuchs, Hiroshi Onishi and Darryl Roberts and our leader and creator Robert Swan started from the northernmost tip of Canada, 860km in a straight line to the North Pole in 56 days.”

From 1990 Joy went on to become a national and international keynote speaker in corporate leadership and team consultant, but that didn’t stop him from his travels, or his expeditions.

“Until COVID hit I’d been doing it for 30 years and it’s taken me all over the place including Australia, China, USA, France, Egypt, Kenya, Tanzania, Mauritius, New Zealand, Hawaii, Fiji, Philippines, Thailand, Malaysia,

Hong Kong, Singapore and Bali,” he said.

“In-between my work, and as part of it, I was: the leader and creator of Cooper Creek Expedition by boat from Innamincka to Lake Eyre for a business group in 1991; I co-led an ascent of Mt Vinson, Antarctica’s highest mountain, with Peter Hillary, for a group of Australian businesspeople in 1992; ascended Mount Denali in 1993, Mt Kilimanjaro in 1996 and was the first and only Australian to ski and ski kite solo and unassisted to the Magnetic North Pole; 480km in 20 days in 1998.”

After COVID Mr Joy moved to the Alpine Shire for the beauty of the area, and access to things like mountain biking and hiking and said it’s a great place to be.

“The people here are great

too, it’s a great community,” he said.

“What I really love about what I do is watching how people develop and the strength it takes to deal with challenges.

“On exhibitions it’s all about

making it work between people and when that happens its beautiful.

“I’m still in contact with the North Pole team because we worked so well together, people make lifelong friends.”

◆ FROSTY: Graeme Joy on his North Pole exhibition.

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The most important test of the year

Learning and vision is about more than just seeing clearly.

Children with normal eye-sight as measured on a distance letter chart can still have visual problems that may significantly affect their concentration and learning - for example, if excessive focusing effort is needed to stop the print from going blurry when reading, then it will be much harder to derive meaning from the words.

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with ROXY AKERS, WANGARATTA EYECARE