🦪 Shucking a few Moe Oysters

Plus: Baw Baw artworks and Leongatha bees.

Author

Jacob Wallace
June 10, 2026

⏱️ This Wednesday edition of our newsletter is a six-minute read.

👋 Hello Gippslanders, it’s Jacob here.

🐝 Yesterday, I drove to Leongatha to chat to local beekeeper Ulysses de Vincentis about his five hives of busy honey makers.

We talked about how to start a hive by catching a swarm, how much honey is produced and the threat an invasive mite is posing to bee populations. I got to don a beekeeping suit to get up close and personal with some of Ulysses’ bees - luckily, I didn’t get stung.

👀 Looking ahead. In this week’s newsletter we’re talking about:

  • 🏗️ How offshore wind farm turbines are constructed and whether they can be manufactured in Australia;

  • 🎨 Baw Baw Shire’s proposed new art policy to dust off the pieces in storage;

  • 🦪 The Moe oyster - what is it? And how do you cook one, and;

  • 🐊 The NSW crocodile handler Damian Duffy.

🎊 WHAT’S ON THIS WEEK 🎟️

🧺 FARMERS MARKETS 🥧

🚀 Alright, let’s jump into the Monitor’s latest yarns!

🔍 HEARD THIS WEEK👂

The scale of the project is mind-boggling. And it comes with a new dictionary.

To start with, 900 wind turbine towers, each up to about 250 metres tall. Attached to these, at the tip known as the “hub”, 2,700 fibreglass blades, around 100 metres in length. All powered by a “nacelle”.

And the tower itself needs to be locked into place by a transition piece and a monopile, the latter of which is driven up to 50 metres into the seabed.

When construction of this mammoth project is complete, it will play a key role in powering the state. But it’s not only about scale, but the logistics required to bring that scale to reality - the factories, transport and engineering.

The turbines and their underwater supports can weigh between 2,000 and 3,000 tonnes depending on the model, while the main post of the turbines (the tower) can protrude 250 metres out of the ocean with the three rotating blades stretching a further 100 metres into the air.

Offshore wind turbine diagram. Image provided by Star of the South.

It’s due to their size that these towers are so efficient at generating power - one rotation of the turbine can power an average Australian home for 48 hours.

One of Gippsland’s Offshore Wind Zone’s most developed projects, Star of the South, is looking to begin construction of 147 turbines in the Bass Strait in 2030.

The Chief Development Officer for Star of the South, Erin Coldham, told the Gippsland Monitor that the boats used for installation can carry up to three turbines at a time.

She said the boats will take pre-assembled turbine parts to a jack-up vessel, a specialised elevating platform that connects to the seafloor, which then begins constructing the turbines with a crane.

“The foundation gets drilled into the seabed, then a transition piece that connects the foundation to the tower, then you've got the nacelle, which is like the brains on top, and then three blades.”

The foundation for a tower can be drilled into place in about two-and-a-half hours.

“It’s pretty quick once they get out there,” Coldham said. 

A crucial question hanging over the offshore wind industry in Australia is whether the turbine parts - from the vast towers and blades to the wires, nuts and bolts - will be manufactured locally, elsewhere around Australia or overseas.

More than half of Baw Baw Shire’s art collection of 342 paintings is gathering dust in storage.

A new council policy will seek to display more works in libraries and community hubs while exploring the possibility of digitising the collection.

What happened: Baw Baw Shire mayor Kate Wilson told the Monitor the council holds 220 “public” artworks, which are pieces located outside in parks and public spaces around the shire.

It also owns a “civic” collection of 122 artworks, which are pieces that hang inside galleries. Most of these civic paintings, sculptures and photographs are displayed in the Drouin Council Office or the West Gippsland Arts Centre.

The policy will endeavour to display more of the stored art in libraries, community hubs and public spaces.

Wilson said without a clear art policy, maintaining the collection “can be a little bit unruly” because the council is constantly receiving new artworks, either by acquiring them through capital works projects or as gifts from community groups.

Wilson said council staff will rotate the artworks in West Gippsland Arts Centre to ensure the collection is able to be viewed by the public.

LOOKING NATIONALLY 👀

Last week, my colleague Archie Milligan had a chat to Damian Duffy, who is known online as Wildman.

Duffy grew up in Western Sydney with a dad in jail. He became an alcoholic. He said he grew up violent and was always looking for a fight.

Now, he works in men's mental health, handles crocodiles for a living and has nearly two million followers across various platforms.

Take a look at an interview with Duffy below.

🎥 Watch: How to cook a Moe Oyster 🦪

The delectable starter known as the Moe Oyster - or sometimes the Moe Cray or Traralgon Lobster - is not at all like a regular oyster.

My efforts to nail down the exact history of the Gippsland appetiser were fruitless, but most comment on a video I made about the dish agree it originated somewhere in the Latrobe Valley more than 30 years ago.

Take a look at a video I made about the history of the snack and how to prepare it below.

Thanks for catching up with us this week at the Monitor. I hope you enjoyed this issue of our newsletter and we’d love to hear from you.

☎️ Call out. This week, I’m looking to write a story on whether the snow season on Gippsland’s alpine ranges is being impacted by a warming climate. If you’re someone who frequents or works at the ski fields and you’re happy to chat, please reach out to us at [email protected].

I’ll be back in your inbox on Friday with more local yarns, so stay tuned.

Cheers,
Jacob & the Gippsland Monitor team

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