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g n i k r Wo
s y a d i ho l For most, summer is a time to take a break from working life, a chance to put the feet up and maybe head to the beach.
“We deal with a significant amount of stolen and lost property and property being handed in,” Sgt Walkley said.
divisional van as they try to catch up with people breaking the law. However, Sgt Walkley has a solution to this unique problem – his police bicycle, equipped with special large tyres if he needs to take to the sand. “Everything is within walking distance here, so the majority of our road offences are bicycle based,” said Sgt Walkley, who’s qualified to conduct the specialised bike patrols.
But for Sergeant David Walkley and his team at the Port Fairy Police Station, a holiday is the furthest thing from their minds over the warmer months.
“Unfortunately gone are the days when you could leave things in a caravan park unlocked and unattended. We have eskies of alcohol and bicycles stolen every night as people move around caravan parks.
From late December through to the end of January, the usually sleepy coastal village of 3,500 people in Victoria’s south west experiences a population boom like few other places in the state when more than 25,000 tourists arrive en masse.
“We have a 95 per cent recovery rate of these items and while it may sound like minor offending, it’s a big inconvenience to the owners and takes up plenty of our time investigating.”
“When I’m on bike patrol, I intercept every rider I see committing an offence. While I fine some, I’ll mainly talk to them and try and educate. I’ll even visit the caravan park to talk to parents if I see a child doing the wrong thing.
“It’s bedlam,” Sgt Walkley said with a laugh.
A drawcard of Port Fairy’s is its bevy of historic buildings and streets, remnants of a timeline stretching back to its whaling settlement beginnings in the 1820s.
“Word then gets out around town and the caravan parks that we’re cracking down and then the community ends up self-regulating.
The Station Commander has just ended his first summer at Port Fairy, having arrived at the station in June 2019 when the town was a cold and wet place, buffeted by icy winter winds whipped up in the mighty Southern Ocean it overlooks. But in the summer, the town’s Norfolk Pine-lined streets are an idyllic setting and cafes and beaches are choc-full of holiday makers.
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However, as the tourists settle into the more than 12,000 campsites, five caravan parks and hundreds of holiday homes for lengthy stays, they let their guard down, allowing criminal behaviour to seep in.
POLICE LIFE | AUTUMN 2020
Narrow streets, boardwalks, footbridges and alleyways criss-cross the town, particularly around the beachfront and Moyne River, which splits the town in two. While a charming feature, the thoroughfares can pose a problem for police in a bulky
“We see a lot of cyclists with no helmets, no lights at night and mobile phone use while riding is also a massive issue.
“We haven’t had a cyclist fatality in my time here and we don’t want one. But, considering 80 per cent of the town is getting around on bikes at times, the potential is there.” The boom in tourist numbers and growth in Port Fairy’s population is no surprise.
