Reflections from the past

Crew members came off the ferry yesterday, leaving it trapped on the downriver side of McGrath's Island, about 130 river kilometres downstream of Euston.

Echuca's town clerk, Mr Kevin McCartney, explained yesterday that, depending on a number of circumstances, the ferry might not now get through the lock at Euston until September.

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An inspection revealing about 20 cracked and broken girders has forced the closure of the wooden bridge at the northern end of the Echuca-Moama bridge.

Department of Main Roads engineers closed the bridge to all traffic on Wednesday afternoon.

Unofficial estimates put the cost of repairing the damage to the old wooden structure at about S20,000.

The regional engineer of the DMR stationed in Deniliquin, Mr P. M. B. Pope, expects that the section of damaged bridge could be closed for nearly two months.

While the bridge is closed, motorists will use the side track, which was upgraded and sealed on Friday afternoon.

25 years ago, March 2001

Echuca-Moama motorists should see a 1.5 cent a litre drop in fuel prices passed on at most bowsers early this week.

The price drop is the result of the Federal Government's decision to abolish half-yearly CPI adjustments on fuel excise.

The area marketing consultant with district Ampol distributor Tonkin Petroleum, Ray Hamilton, said the timing of when the price reduction would be passed on would vary from one retailer to the next,

He said retailers who bought supplies before the 1.5 cent a litre drop came into effect would wait until those supplies were used up before passing on the price reduction.

Mr Hamilton said retailers were only operating on margins of about three cents a litre as it was.

The price for unleaded in Echuca-Moama was around 99.9 cents a litre late last week, so prices should generally be around 98.4 cents a litre by the time the excise change was passed on, he said.

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Echuca United has had an exciting start to the 2001 season before any matches have been played.

Extensive building has begun on the clubrooms at United’s home ground.

‘’The new building will include netball change rooms, umpires’ rooms, disabled toilets and one new football change room,’’ Echuca United president Adrian Sanderson said.

‘’We received a sport and recreation grant from the Victorian Government for about $40,000. The rest, around $20,000, has come from club fundraising that we have done.

‘’The netballers and umpires needed new rooms and we needed more space for the footballers. One room is not big enough for both teams to share.’’

Building began two weeks ago and the club is hoping that the renovations will be completed by the team's first home match.

10 years ago, March 2016

Teachers in Echuca and across Victoria are demanding a 21 per cent pay rise during the next three years.

The Australian Education Union’s Victorian branch submitted its log of claims to the Victorian Government in December, with requests including class sizes to be capped at 20 students and the scaling back of short-term contracts.

AEU Victoria councillor and Rochester Secondary College teacher Ruth Borger said the log of claims had several significant elements other than pay issues.

‘‘The most important area for many teachers is a request for a reduction in what is called face-to-face teaching hours, so that all teachers have sufficient time to spend preparing their classes and correcting students’ work,’’ she said.

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Cross triathlon may not be the biggest sport going around, but for Echuca’s Tim Fitzpatrick and Nathalia’s Connor Terry, it certainly is.

Fitzpatrick and Terry both came away from the Australian Championships at Mt Kosciuszko with gold medals in their age group, giving them the title of national champion and automatic entry into the world championships at the same venue later this year.

Cross triathlon is different to regular triathlons in that the bike event is done off road on a mountain bike and the run is a cross country track.

Fitzpatrick took out the 20-24 age group, while Terry won the under 20 category, a great achievement for a 17-year-old.