Halt The Presses
Two days before Prime Minister Harold Holt drowned in a snorkeling mishap – in 1967 – he composed a letter to Ben Cropp, a well-known undersea film-maker. The letter describes the beauties of the Barrier Reef, as well as the coral-eating threat posed by the crown-of-thorn starfish. Eerily, Holt never got to sign the letter, but his personal secretary decided to send the message anyway.
By the time Cropp received the mail, the writer was missing, presumed drowned, off Victoria’s Mornington Peninsula. And if that’s not reason to stick your nose into Ben Cropp’s Shipwreck Museum on Dixie Street in Port Douglas (Qld), then consider the gift Holt received from his US counterpart, LB Johnson: a personally engraved spear-gun. [Near St Mar'y Chapel By The Sea. Open Tues-Sun 9-5 except public holidays. Entry $5. Phone 07-7098-5325]