THE Weekly Times revisits Port Fairy, Victoria, 75 years after our photographers captured the seaside village.

So there you are in 1934, tootling along the Princes Highway from Portland in your Ford or Dodge or Chev or whatever (don't forget, the first Holden would be 14 years away!) at 30 or 40 mph.

You suddenly get a bit of a push from a sou'wester and, before you know it, you're doing the speed of light.

Neatly circumventing Einstein's theory of relativity, you jump forward in time - 75 years to 2009 - to find yourself in Port Fairy.

The place looks a bit different to when The Weekly Times visited in June 1934, (see right) but much the same.

Many of Port Fairy's old buildings, some dating to the 19th century, are still standing, although they may display different names.

For instance, if you want to post a letter and wander into the post office you might find it hard to buy a stamp but at least you'd be sure of a good feed.

You see, the postmaster called it stumps years ago and the old building is part of the Darriwill Farm franchise.

The courthouse is the history centre and Goble's Steam Flour Mill is a B&B.

Your old mate, Hugh Haldane, the lighthouse keeper at Griffiths Island on the edge of town from 1929 to 1952, has long gone.

But the mutton birds still swarm to Griffiths Island in summer. The event is like a scene in Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds - tens of thousands of them blacken the sky.

There is still a fishing fleet in town but while Port Fairy has shrunk, casual passersby can still see crates of fish being unloaded on the town wharf.

And who are all these people? Where are they from? What did you say they were called? Tourists? Why aren't they at work?

I suppose in 1934, while tourists and travellers were about they weren't present in the numbers they are today and little places like Port Fairy, which combine a beautiful town with a spectacular and easily accessible coastline, are magnets for a city populace in need of rest and recreation.

So you head out of town, sad to see so much has changed but a little heartened to see so much has been preserved.

But as you turn from Bank St on to the Princes Highway you notice one thing - the soldier still stands tall on the old ANZAC memorial. Lest we forget.