We look forward to seeing you and the next Coast to Coast Conference. It was a stroke of luck that delegates could return home just before Cairns became locked down due to a Covid case at the end of July. The 90 or so delegates who managed to get to Cairns enjoyed networking at the welcome reception, the half-day field trips and the convivial conference dinner. Each session allowed for follow up Q&A sessions which included comments from online applicants via the conference App. Video: 17-Pound Potato Unearthed in New Zealand May be Largest Ever Found A New Zealand couple cleaning out their vegetable garden were astounded when they unearthed an enormous potato that weighs a staggering 17 pounds. Given the large number of delegates online, many of the talks were delivered as pre-recorded video talks interspersed among the live talks. The conference had 6 main themes encompassing ~90 papers split between 5 parallel sessions. Half of the eight plenary speakers came to Cairns and the others delivered their keynote talks via Zoom. The conference itself was a success notwithstanding Covid problems.

Two well-attended pre-conference workshops were held at the start of the week. The border restrictions meant that the majority of the 99 conference delegates in Cairns came from QLD. There was a total of 285 conference delegates but only 99 of these were able to be onsite at the Cairns conference venue, the Pullman International Hotel. In addition, WA imposed its own self-isolation restrictions for WA residents returning from QLD which prevented the ACS Chair and conference co-convenor, Jo Ludbrook from attending the conference onsite in Cairns.įor the first time the Coast to Coast conference had to be delivered in a hybrid format to cater for both onsite and online delegates.

However, in the 2 weeks prior to the conference QLD closed its borders to VIC, SA and NSW due to Covid-19. The 15 th Coast to Coast biennial conference organised by the Australian Coastal Society (ACS Ltd) in Cairns, 26-29 July, was potentially attractive to many delegates from southern states keen to escape winter.

Coast to coast