Painted bollards by Jan Mitchell along the Geelong waterfront precinct
© Rachel Lewis/Lonely Planet Images/Getty Images Plu
Lifesavers with a twist
Travel about 90 minutes outside of Melbourne’s CBD and you’ll find some of Geelong’s most popular celebrities. Even better is that you won’t ever struggle to snag a few snaps of them either, because… well they’re not really going anywhere. Yes, the Baywalk Bollards are a Geelong institution and showcases more than 100 huge, varied icons.
Constructed by Australian artist Jan Mitchell out of old timbers and piles from a city pier that was demolished in the 1980s into 48 sites, each bollard tells a distinctly unique tale. There’s Ian MacDonald – Geelong’s city surveyor who produced plans of the Eastern Beach complex, the Koori Hunter – representing the Wathuarong people of the area, and a 1940’s tram conductress – indicative of when trams ran in Geelong from 1912 to 1956.
The bollards you see today are part of the Town Baths Swimmers Club – a progression of lifesavers designed to highlight the changing style of men’s swimming trunks. Which one bollard will be your favourite?
Related Images
Manatees in the Ichetucknee River in Florida
Bubbles in the ice of Abraham Lake in Alberta, Canada
Cefalù on Mediterranean Sea in Sicily, Italy
Sperm whale mother and albino baby swimming off the coast of Portugal
Green sea turtle with sardines near Playa Grandi Beach, Curaçao
Sea Cliff Bridge along Australian Pacific Ocean coast
Walruses near Kvitøya in the Svalbard archipelago, Norway
A Brandt's cormorant hunts for a meal in a school of Pacific mackerel beneath an oil rig off the coast of Los Angeles, California
Bing Today Images
