Victoria's View | 22 July 2025

Hiya Hinchinbrook Shire! This last week has been a bit of a hectic one with myself and Sherie (our newspaper's fantastic Sales Manager) heading down to Airlie Beach for a two-day training session at the head office.

How I love a road trip! Sherie and I chatted the four and a half hours away and arrived in Airlie ready to learn more and hone our respective crafts. I think we both picked up some helpful tips and tricks across the two days, and it was lovely to see my old colleagues from Whitsunday Life and meet my new ones who were just beginning their journeys with the Life Publishing team.

Special shout-out to our Editorial Team Leader and sharkaholic, Ruth Puddefoot, who competed in the Airlie Beach Half Marathon on the weekend and smashed it! All the best on your travels, I know the team will miss you greatly as you take a well-deserved Western Australian sabbatical.

NAIDOC week is happening this week for the community. With a flag-raising ceremony at Ingham Council's office, and many schools participating in traditional crafts and storytelling. Now is the time to reflect and pay respects to our country's first peoples, their culture and traditions, past, present and emerging.

Victoria

Fun Fact: While more than 400 species of sharks are found worldwide today, about 170 of them inhabit Australian seas, from the world’s largest, the whale shark (14m), to one of the smallest, the pygmy shark (30cm). The Coral Sea is a hotspot of shark diversity with more than 50 species. My favourite shark is the wobbegong.