With the kind of good rapport that she once had throughout the land.

Downstairs they’ve let the light in, with a kitchen, bars and stage,

And she’s looking pretty sprightly and much younger than her age.

Her facade once hidden’s been restored, and the old, no-one recalls,

And you have to see the gallery of our history on its walls.

There’s busloads from the cruise ships, with their grins from ear to ear,

Literally shiploads of ‘em, all buying souvenirs.

Her verandah has been weatherproofed, it’s grillwork’s been restored,

And her rooms up there, are hardly spare, as their views can’t be ignored.

They felled the two old trees that blocked its vista ‘cross North Bay, 

And put a bar upstairs and out the back to watch the humpbacks play.

The old lane’s a menagerie of green cascading flora,

You’d hardly recognise The Pit in the future if you saw her.

I tell you true I saw it thus and not that far away,

And as busy as a beehive on a bright and balmy day.

I live in Pambula Beach, two of my children went to Lumen. Yes parking is not what it used to be but seriously please stop complaining, it is what it is. 

Park at the sporting complex or down Pambula Beach Road a tad or even the beach.  Your children are able to walk and if not by themselves walk with them. 

It is good exercise and/or bonding time for you and your children. If time is an issue, 15 minutes earlier getting ready is not huge. 

Please feel very lucky you and your children can go to this school or any school at all. Have a look in Australia and abroad of what others don't have. It will all work out over time. 

Mike Kelly is right in saying that a comprehensive, long term plan for the Princes Hwy is desperately and urgently needed, and that it’s disappointing the NSW state government has failed to produce one (BDN 10/8).

But Mike is only partly right.

What is even more desperately and urgently needed is a plan, a vision, for the (sustainable) future of the South Coast. One that will cater for the needs of the area, and looks forward 50 to 100 years – which includes plans for likely population growth in the area (including the provision of housing and employment opportunities), and plans for the provision of necessary infrastructure that will include, among many other things, adequate roads.

And that is something much, much bigger than current planning that seems to only go as far as planning for a new bridge at Batemans Bay or expanding some wharf facilities in Eden.  

Council seems disinterested in planning that far ahead.  The state government, as Mike suggests, seems incapable of doing so. And our local state Member seems totally distracted by a problem 500km away – Sydney’s train, bus and tram woes.

If Mike called a public meeting to initiate planning for the area’s long-term future, I’m sure he would be bowled-over by the number of locals concerned about our future, and would find that everyone attending had sensible ideas on what we need to start to do (to borrow someone else’s phrase; sorry!) to “make the South Coast great again”.