Strange Characters

I mentioned in yesterday's post that Lightning Ridge has more than its share of strange characters. This image was cloaked in reality to day when we ran into the town's strange history and visited some bizarre places. I discovered that the LR district does indeed have a population of 2600, but that something like 2000 of these people are scattered around the township in a heap of shacks and impermanent accommodation amidst the large number of mining claims. More amazingly, a large number of these people are outside the formal economy and society. A lot do not pay taxes (or not much), are not on the electoral register, and are somewhat itinerant. They live among the mullock heaps scattered around the huge number of mine-shafts - though that's the story of my next post. I gather, too, that planning permission is virtually unknown out here and anyone can build anything anywhere. The landscape is also littered with the remains of mining machinery, trucks and cars, and rusty barbed wire. So out here we're somewhat on the fringes of society.

Anyway, lets have a look at the contributions of some the local identities. Here's a photo of a whimsical camper van taking off like a plane from a local caravan park and the van is decorated by a celebrated bush artist, John Murray, whose work appeared last year in a post on Warren.

This little hut, now rather decrepit despite its status as a museum, was one of the first buildings erected in what is now Lightning Ridge nearly a century ago. Called Cooper cottage, it was built in 1916 in the idiom of the day - corrugated iron - by Ben Buren, a Swedish immigrant. The facilities, as the third picture shows, were antiquated, though Max was interested in seeing a Canberra oven.

The next two pictures show Amigos Castle built by an immigrant Italian over the last 30 years. The architect and builder (both the same Italian gentleman) used local materials and had no assistance whatsoever from anyone. All the cement was prepared in a little wheelbarrow and the castle is still under construction with an unknown completion date! I guess progress depends on the flow of income but, since the builder is now elderly, the income flow is slight. The castle is decidedly grandiose compared with most al fresco structures in the town.

The next exhibit (two pictures) is an astronomical built by a Polish immigrant, Szperlak, who was a disciple of Copernicus and Newton. Alas, Mr Szperlak was killed in a house fire before its completion, but he left an impressive monument to his heroes. By the way, this structure doesn't seem to function as an observatory as far as I can tell. It is purely whimsical.This reminds me belatedly that the town of Lightning Ridge claims to be home to over 50 different nationalities despite its meagre 2600 inhabitants. Adjacent to this Polish inspired creation is a small structure made of bottles (see the 6th picture). This type of construction would not be difficult in a place given to heavy drinking because of its extreme heat in summer.

You can probably recognise the four flags 'flying' over the bottle house. Next I present two images of Fred Bodel's house on 3 - mile flat. It was also built in 1916 by Fred and his brothers, immigrants from Germany. He died aged 90 in 1973 - nearly 40 years ago and the place is much as he left it. It might be quaint, but its occupant, Fred, was a millionaire!

I could go on and on about the town's identities and their often strange abodes, but I'll leave it at this point. Even Max was quite taken by these exhibits, even though he was far more enthusiastic about fossicking for opal.