Time to write down some of the stories that have remained with me since leaving Darwin. Being stuck in a heatwave/dust storm in Blinman with my own studio is ideal – no more excuses!!!!!!!
Vernacular Architecture 1
Camooweal, 5th August 2020
Well this story was before Darwin but because I mentioned David Green in the last post I think it appropriate to elaborate.
You may well ask who was the creator of the satellite dish picnic tables and modernist toilet blocks in the caravan park behind the Camooweal General Store; fortunately I have pre-empted your question.
My search started with the caravan park manager who unfortunately didn’t know. He thought that all of the parks’ buildings had come from surrounding mining camps but suggested “David Green would know as he used to run the caravan park. He’s just behind where you are camped, you may catch him, he’s a busy man”
Taking his advice I walked around the back and was sized up by a rather round cattle dog dingo mix (not that my dog knowledge amounts to much). ‘Goldie’ (the dog) accompanied me to two men having a chat over the fence and once I was delivered ‘Goldie’ eagerly went to talk to a short white curly haired dog thru the fence next door, mimicking its master.
“Hi, are you David Green” I asked, “understand you were the owner of the caravan park over there” I said.
“Nah, I leased it”, David replied. “Do you know the origin of the three toilet blocks and picnic table’ I enquired.
“Nuh” …. long pause….
“They were there when I got here, after working managing cattle stations in the area, I started up this workshop and had people knocking on the door before I opened. Never had time to put the gutter up along the front, very busy always. If you don’t charge too much they will come back”
“Yeah” I agreed, “if you do a good job they will always come back.”
“What about the satellite dishes?” I double checked.
Another long pause….
“Yea, I built those” as a sly grin emerged from one side of his face, “Telecom workers had them on their truck parked out the front and I asked how much they wanted for em. They said you can have em; means we won’t have to dump em. They provide some filtered shade….understand there is a bit of rust in the cattle rails these days….on the second one”
“There is a second one?!”, I interrupted.
“Yeah around the back but I used a second hand stainless steel urinal on the bench top so it wouldn’t rust …. cleaned it first but”
“They look great!” I congratulated.
There was a flatbed truck next to us with an old battered red commodore tied to the tray. David looked at it and sighed “Water coming out of the exhaust pipe…. They put a head on they found down the dump and didn’t put in a new seal …. Shouldn’t have taken that job on!”
This is the first model with a table top and seats made from cattle rails.
Where industry and wildlife meet
Mt Isa, 11th November 2020
As dusk arrived so did the flying foxes rotating back and forth along the water filled creek.
Taking turns to dive down low and skim along the water’s surface collecting insects or water or maybe both.
Their rhythmic high pitched sounds were supported by a chorus of bird chirps, duck quacks and frog croaks.
The flora was a mess of introduced species that had claimed what was an industrial backwater.
Somehow the local wildlife had adapted to this unique ecosystem.
Cooking under the oleander tree
Boulia, 12th November 2020
Perched on the banks of the parched but ponded Burke River, Big Agnes (my tent), the Lawnmower and I are tucked under an oleander tree and I’m cooking up a storm. Not that I needed to as one was brewing there and then; a combination of cooling temperature (had been 42oc earlier in the day) and an intriguingly uniform carpet of tropical clouds heading south towards the Tropic of Capricorn accompanied by distant rumbling of lightning.
The wind swirled hot and cold blasts that I had only recently first experienced in Darwin. The Oleander tree provided a comfortable refuge with only my ankles getting misted occasionally with cool rain.
The dinner being prepared was a garlic, spring onion and Portuguese sardines topped with lightly dried oregano placed on a bed of fettuccini, lightly drizzled with garlic infused extra virgin olive oil ; eg Fettuccini alla Porto Sardinos, but there was a twist;
Disturbingly the Oleander was full of poisonous seed pods which were bursting with soft hairy seeds all being sprayed randomly everywhere including into the Fettuccini alla Porto Sardinos!!!! …… Even in paradise there can be complications …… Think I got them all out?
Roadside installations
North of Birdsville, 12th November 2020
150km due north of Birdsville beyond the middle of nowhere I passed a lawnmower. It was stationary on the side of the Gibber Plain!
Then I passed a roadside shelter, but something wasn’t right! It was gable roofed and was some 100m off the road with blue gravel road in front of it but no access to it. I didn’t think too much of it until just down the road on the other side was a concrete garden setting in the middle of the plain.
I did a u turn and went back to the shelter and yes someone has erected a shelter and part road and behind it were at least seven human made and natural mounds that mimicked the roof form of the shelter. The photo does not do the installation justice. The contrast of the Gibber Plain with the natural and unnatural was very powerful. There was no signage or references on the web as to who or why this installation was created – thank you whoever did.
Vernacular Architecture 2
Marree, 14th November 2020
It would have been 42oC in the shade if there had been any on the Birdsville Track in the far north of South Australia in a town called Marree, formerly Hergott Springs, about 2800km South in a crooked line from Darwin where I started 8 days ago.
At the end of two days negotiating a 600km stretch of dirt road I was stopped in my tracks. Not by slippery Gibber gravel the size of golf balls, not by a bull dust hole or jumbo corrugations but a symbol inextricably linked with one of the bravest chapters in Australia’s pioneering history – the Afghan cameleers initiating the opening up of Australia’s early exploration and trade routes through this impossibly harsh country. This building is a small but significant reminder of the richness of the Persian and Central Asian Empires.
Just opposite the Lake Eyre Yacht Club is a Mosque reportedly built in 1882 or maybe 1861 by Afghans on the current day equivalent of a 456 visa. This was Australia’s first recorded Mosque. The Mosque’s architecture was a far cry from its elaborately decorated Middle Eastern and Asian cousins.
This is a replica of the original built from gum logs, straw, mud, chicken wire and thatch. Photographs in the nearby Marree Hotel show the original Mosque in 1897 complete with washing pool essential to the ritual of prayer.
Roadside installation 2
Mungeranie, 13th November 2020
Blinman dust storm
Blinman, 15th November 2020
Flapping iron and dust and gravel blasting the sides of my budget studio. Well it’s actually a camp kitchen but I have taken possession as there is no one else camping, probably due to the 420c temperature and gale force winds. Even got some time to write these shorts and paint.
Cheers for now 87)
Sphere Observations 
It was a great surprise and pleasure to catch up with you in Cairns on Boxing Day. I look forward to more architectural anomalies after your return to Adelaide and the open road. What about including big things and silo art?
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