Gwalia resident works to save century-old home in 'living ghost town'
She has lived in the ghost town, 800 kilometres north-east of Perth in WA's northern Goldfields, for just over a year.
But her family's connection to the community goes back generations.
"I think that's probably been the main factor for me coming home," she said.
"But it's also just a really amazing place to live, there's no road rage, there's no traffic lights — very calm."
She said she was pitching in to help preserve her historic neighbourhood after a freak microburst storm sent tin sheets flying earlier this year.
The storm, which rolled through the town and nearby Leonora in a matter of minutes, caused significant damage to several of the near-century-old buildings.
While Leonora Shire remains committed to rebuilding the historical precinct, one of the former miner's cottages was so badly damaged it was earmarked for demolition.
With the shire's budget limited, Ms Williams and her father, Norm, saw an opportunity to help, offering $2,000 for a 99-year lease on the cottage.
"But my dad and I thought we may as well approach the shire [and see] if we can slow down the plans to demolish it," she said.
"Let's see what we can do."
Leonora's councillors unanimously accepted the offer, and the pair got to work.
Despite securing what is likely one of the cheapest rents in Australia, Ms Williams and her father have a big job ahead of them.
The storm tore off most of the roof.
"We had to do a bit of work getting out the insulation that fell on the floor."
The town site grew alongside the Sons of Gwalia gold mine from 1897.
It was the home of former US President Herbert Hoover, who took up a position as the mine's first manager.
A once-thriving community of 1200 residents became largely abandoned in just weeks, when the mine closed in 1963.
Almost a decade later, it was the vision of a Goldfields couple to preserve the town as a museum precinct.
But despite its "ghost town" label, Gwalia still has a handful of residents.
"It's actually really exciting, I've had a couple of neighbours move in recently at the street I live on," Ms Williams said.
Historian Chris Harris has been developing a database of Western Australia's ghost towns in the lead-up to the state's bicentennial in 2029.
She said a ghost town was one with a population of less than 10 per cent of what its population was in its heyday.
She said a ghost town might have been formed for a specific purpose, and when that purpose ended, the community dissolved.
"A ghost town can cease to exist right up until the current day," she said.
"The most recent one that everyone knows about, of course, is Wittenoom."
Ms Harris said the label could also be a tourist drawcard.
She said the list of towns in the project was ever-growing as records and family histories uncovered previously undiscovered ghost towns.
The project has grown from a list of 251 towns to more than 500.
Sections of the Williams's cottage's seemingly untouched charm can be found among the rubble of the storm damage.
Ms Williams said there were sections of pressed tin a previous resident had painted over in the shape of flower petals.
"We'll see what we can do to make it solid, but also respect it's history."
"Once it's gone, it's gone."
Ms Williams said the restoration had given her and her father a chance to bond, saying she was fortunate to have his help.
"There's not much he can't fix," she said.
The town's small number of permanent residents have plenty of visitors for company.
Ms Williams said people occasionally wandered into the wrong houses.
"I think sometimes they're just so enamoured with the place that they're head down, walking around, looking at everything," she said.
"And they actually forget sometimes when they stumble into people's yards."
But she said there was plenty of room for everyone.
"It's a unique opportunity that we've got tourism, we've got the community that live here, and we've also got mining," Ms Williams said.
Another cottage sits empty at the other end of Ms Williams' street.
She said she hoped someone else would join in the work to preserve Gwalia's living history.
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SBS Australia
38 minutes ago
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In 1970, a year after Egan wrote the track Gurindji Blues with land rights leader Vincent Lingiari, Egan was sent to Sydney to attend the annual general meeting of the Commonwealth Council of NADOC (National Aborigines' Day Observance Committee). The purpose of the National Aborigines Day Observance Committee was to "create and promote an informed public opinion on the status and needs of the Aborigines". The committee had been set up back in 1957, two years after the National Missionary Council of Australia (NMCA) had asked the federal government to establish a National Aborigines Day. While denying the request for a National Day, the federal government supported a National Aborigines Day via funding for publications, leaflets and stickers as a way of "creating and promoting an informed public opinion on the status and the needs of the Aborigines … as to what is being done, and what remains to be done". 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ABC News
2 hours ago
- ABC News
Finding Robert Bogucki, the man who disappeared on purpose
In 1999, an American trekked into the Australian desert alone, sparking an international rescue mission. Decades later, he returns to meet the people who tried to save him from himself. More than 26 years ago, Robert Bogucki set foot in the Great Sandy Desert. ( ABC News: Andrew Seabourne ) Two men are walking down a desert track. They are from different worlds, but they have one thing in common. They know what it's like to be alone in the vast outback wilderness of central Australia. They know how the heat sears your skin, the way thirst chokes your throat, and the sound dingoes make when they howl in the night. The lives of these men — an Aboriginal elder and a well-to-do American — intersected in bizarre circumstances a quarter of a century ago. In 1999, Robert Bogucki deliberately walked into the Great Sandy Desert, triggering one of the biggest land searches Australia had ever seen, and a fierce public backlash. Robert Bogucki was found after six weeks alone in the desert. 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By this point, Merridoo and the other Aboriginal trackers are worried about where the search is leading them, and what they might find. They know this country. And they believe there are dark spirits following the American. "That's how the spirits play their game — they let you go out, and they can lift you up," Merridoo explains. "It's very dangerous ... the spirits will come and grab you, and take you away." The trackers make a call to head home. Over the next 10 days, as WA police charter helicopters, planes and troop carriers to scour the desert for their missing man, an uncomfortable reality sets in. Survival experts advise Robert Bogucki has almost certainly perished, while the extensive search is becoming more expensive and dangerous by the day. On August 8, 28 days after Robert Bogucki had set off into the desert, Senior Sergeant Fuller made one of the most difficult decisions of his career. "No-one wants to have to put a price on a human life," he reflects. "But we were damaging vehicles at a rapid rate, and we'd had no fresh sightings. I had to make the call — we were calling off the search." Robert's girlfriend Janet, who'd flown to Broome to assist with the search, is staying in Geoff's spare room. He breaks the news gently, tears rolling down his face. "I told her that Robert was unlikely to be alive, and we couldn't continue the search." "She understood. She gave me a hug, and that was that." Before Janet flies home, she needs to give Robert a fitting farewell. She gets his initials tattooed on her ankle, then makes a pilgrimage into the desert, where she leaves a bottle of Tabasco sauce on the sandy track — "if he saw it, he'd know I'd been there". After the ceremonial trip, Ben Martin offers Janet a lift to the airport. "And as I dropped her off she leaned in and said something unexpected. She said: 'The green berets are coming.'" Things were about to get a whole lot weirder. The Americans arrive Just as the local search effort was winding down, Robert's parents had hired an American search team to fly and retrieve their son's body. Local media couldn't believe their luck as the new squad touched down in Broome. The 1st Special Response Group (1SRG) was a highly skilled unit led by a larger-than-life character known as Garrison St Clair. The unit was led by a cigar-toting American kitted out in army fatigues, known as Garrison St Clair. ( ABC archive ) "He was like a cartoon character — this stocky guy in army fatigues, sucking on a cigar and talking in military parlance," Ben Martin recalls. Police officer Ray Briggs didn't know what to make of the brash Americans. "There was this time I call the star-spangled banner moment," he remembers. "I actually said to him: 'Garrison, you need to be careful out here.' "And I'll never forget it for as long as I live, he said: 'Ray, let me tell you. I started my military career during Vietnam and I ended it during Desert Storm, and during all that time, I never lost a man in combat. I'm not about to lose one out here in the Great Sandy Desert.' "And I thought, are you taking the piss?" The team had brought three specialist search dogs — fast-tracked through customs and equipped with leather booties to protect their delicate paws from the hot desert sand. The story had all the makings of a tabloid sensation — a missing man, a treacherous landscape, a grieving girlfriend, and American mavericks here to save the day. News crews started jetting in from the US and UK. "As soon as the Americans arrived, things went from zero to 100, it went really nuts," Ben Martin says. Ben remembers the intensity kicking up a notch after the American search team arrived. ( ABC News: Kenith Png ) As a second search for Robert Bogucki got underway, an entourage of media helicopters buzzed overhead. Internal police documents show the new mission was aimed at body retrieval — experts were advising Robert would most likely have died of dehydration or exposure within a week. But a few days after the Americans arrive, a cascading series of events takes everyone by surprise. First, a fresh pile of Robert's belongings is found near the Edgar Ranges — a tarpaulin, Robert's immunisation records, and his bible. A stash of Bogucki's belongings were found weeks into the search. ( ABC archive ) Amongst the items left behind on the blue tarp was a yellow scrap of paper — Bogucki's immunisation record. ( ABC archive ) The idea that Robert would abandon his bible led some in the search party to believe that he had given up hope. ( ABC archive ) It was the first clear sign that they were closing in on him. The next day, Ben Martin is out searching with the Americans when they spot a large 'HELP' sign spelled out in pale rocks on a red plateau. "I thought: 'My goodness, maybe we're getting close. Maybe he's still alive,'" he recalls. "And the fact that there was an arrow pointing north, it again, it gave us direction. It gave us somewhere to go." Minutes later, word comes through on a crackly two-way radio call. Robert Bogucki has been found alive, in a rocky gully in the Edgar Ranges, after 43 days. After 43 days in the desert, Robert Bogucki was spotted by a news helicopter in a rocky gully. ( AAP: Robert Duncan ) He is emaciated, and dazed, but alive. The miracle survivor, picked up by a Channel Nine news chopper a few kilometres from where the Americans had been searching, is flown straight to Broome, where an eager press pack capture his ginger steps across the tarmac. Doctors at the local hospital discover he's in remarkably good health, and within a few hours Robert gives an impromptu press conference from his hospital bed. "I can't really say specifically what it was, but I do feel satisfied that I scratched that itch, whatever that was, that sent me out there in the first place." Miracle or madness Reflecting on this moment 26 years later, Robert says he never expected his private spiritual journey to trigger a major search operation and attract international media attention. His aim was to connect with his faith. And Robert was willing to die in the desert to test whether God was present, and wanted him alive. "The initial intention was to just find a place in the middle of the desert, just to sit for a week and fast … and contemplate the universe," he says. During the journey, Robert says he went four weeks without eating, and two weeks without water — longer than experts usually advise the human body can survive. "There was a time that I was passing out frequently from the sun and the heat, and at that point modern science would say, 'oh you're about to die'," he says. "But I was just feeling elation. It didn't feel like death, it felt like encouragement to live." In the wake of his rescue, Robert and Janet were inundated with well-wishes and messages of support from strangers around the world. "The kindness is like a tidal wave hitting you … it makes you feel gratitude in your soul," Janet reflects. "And Robert firmly believes most of the reason he survived was that emotional outpouring of support from people he didn't know." But there was also fierce public backlash from politicians, police and media commentators who regarded his actions as selfish and reckless. Newspaper headlines in the days and weeks after Robert Bogucki was found questioned his motives. ( The West Australian ) The Bogucki family made a $25,000 donation to offset the costs of the search mission, while Robert offered his repeated apologies and thanks to the public. But his behaviour had struck a nerve. Going on an extreme adventure to break a record was one thing. But to risk your life — and potentially others' — on a spiritual quest? That was another. What was largely overlooked was that Robert never intended to be reported missing, and never wanted to be looked for — he was genuinely shocked that his bike was discovered and a search had ensued. "I felt bad about all of that — I've coined the phrase 'dickhead of the decade'," he chuckles dryly. "That's how I felt: I put all these people out, not knowing that it was going to have that effect." Returning to the desert The saga of Robert Bogucki has become part of local folklore, but basic bits of the storytelling have been wrong. Robert was never "lost" in the desert — he knew where he was, and he wanted to be there. And he was not in what the media of the time regularly characterised as "no man's land". Robert had ventured into ancient and occupied land, belonging to the Karajarri, Nyangumarta and Mangala people. Twenty-six years later, he and Janet have returned to pay their respects to the Aboriginal trackers who assisted in the early days of the search. More than 26 years after he was found in the Great Sandy Desert, Robert Bogucki is coming back. ( ABC News: Franque Batty ) In a convoy of 4WDs, they set off from Broome. ( ABC News: Andrew Seabourne ) Janet North is here with Robert, for the first time since she made her symbolic farewell in 1999. ( ABC News: Franque Batty ) As the group drive further inland, they near the turn-off where Robert went walking into the Great Sandy Desert. ( ABC News: Andrew Seabourne ) This is Merridoo's land, and he's calling the shots. ( ABC News: Franque Batty ) As the group rattle down the track in an old 4WD, Merridoo Walbidi is clearly calling the shots. He's glad the American has come back to honour this country, but there's annoyance too. Because Merridoo knows first-hand how quickly people can die in the desert, and the legacy of pain left behind. Both these men made gruelling long walks across the Great Sandy Desert. One was looking for a reason to live, while the other was just trying to stay alive. As the two men sit cross-legged under a small tree on the edge of the desert, Merridoo shares the story of his past. Merridoo Walbidi was born in the early 1950s, among the last desert families living untouched by colonisation. Life in the desert was precarious — you had to know the landscape intimately to secure enough water to survive. "It was a hard life. A very hard life," he reflects. "I'd walk for long time with my father — he was a tall man, a warrior, and he taught me hunting." But as Merridoo approached adolescence, things were changing. "The people were all gone. We couldn't find them. All our extended family — nobody," he says. There was a new world. The whitefella world. The desert families were moving to the white settlements popping up along the coast, either walking voluntarily into the cattle stations and townships, or being rounded up on trucks by native welfare. Life was getting more lonely in the desert, and that made it more dangerous. Then, when Merridoo was about 12 years old, something terrible happened. His youngest brother fell sick. Merridoo remembers the pain his family felt when his youngest brother died. ( ABC News: Andy Seabourne ) "He was only little one, maybe seven or eight years old," Merridoo says. "He drank some bad water, maybe it was dirty water, from animals. "I remember him laying there, on the ground, and he couldn't breathe properly." The little boy died not long after. "I can still picture it … where he was laid. We couldn't bear to look. It was the shock of our lives," Merridoo says. "My parents were heartbroken. We had to leave him there. "And we were all alone. There was no-one to share our grief. So my father said: 'That's it — enough. It's time for us to go.'" The decision was made. The family would begin the long walk north towards the coast. After many months they reached a cattle station about 400km north. And they began their new lives: new language, new food, new animals, a new way of seeing the world. Merridoo's family were reunited with the other Martu people and desert families. But they all shared similar stories of death and loss. So Merridoo finds it hard to understand why gudiya — white people — romanticise desert life, and why Robert Bogucki would have deliberately risked his life to go out there. Merridoo feels a deep connection to the desert, but he knows the dangers. So he struggles to understand why men like Robert have romanticised this life. ( ABC News: Franque Batty ) He misses the desert, with its starry night nights and vast horizons. But he'd rather be where there is safe drinking water, and plentiful food, and medicine to give to children when they fall sick. "It's like my father said — there is no going back. It's a one-way trip we do. We can never go back to how things were," he tells Robert, listening intently as the new friends sip tea by the hot coals of a campfire. Merridoo organises a small ceremony out on the track, to try to right some of those wrongs from 26 years ago. After a smoking ceremony, he instructs Robert to stand before him. Robert stands tall, hands grasped behind his back, looking downward. He speaks gruffly. After a smoking ceremony, Merridoo instructs Robert to stand before him. ( ABC News: Franque Batty ) After a moment of silence, Merridoo welcomes Robert back to the Great Sandy Desert. ( ABC News: Franque Batty ) "Thank you, my friend. For letting me walk though your yard, to learn the things I needed to learn," he tells the senior lawman. "And thank you for coming to look for me — you and the other two trackers Mervyn and Peter. "I will never forgot the knowledge I learnt on your country, and I will use it to the best of my ability." After a moment of silence, Merridoo beckons Robert over and embraces him in a bear hug. "Thank you my friend. Thank you for coming back and paying respects," he says. "You are very welcome here, any time." After a few days in the desert, Robert and Janet will head back to the log cabin where they live in remote central Alaska. It's hard to imagine a place more different to the hot, arid interior of northern Western Australia — but there are subtle similarities. Both places attract those looking to get away from people, regulation, and the claustrophobic expectations of modern society. Both are tough landscapes to live in, where only those truly committed to isolation remain. Robert Bogucki sits alongside the Aboriginal trackers who went searching for him decades ago. ( ABC News: Franque Batty ) Robert and Janet's forested block is not far from where another young white man made his own private quest in the wilderness. Christopher McCandless, whose perilous journey was documented in the book Into the Wild, sparked similar questions of survival and solitude. Why are some people compelled to gamble their one chance at life in search of spiritual enlightenment? And is it selfish or inspired to do so? Robert is philosophical: everyone faces their own unique challenges in life, he says, and everyone will have to face death eventually. He just happened to do it at age 33, in the public spotlight. Now 59, he still hasn't solved all of the questions that led him to the desert. But for now, he's content among the men who spent those long days tracking his footprints in the sand. Robert feels a deep connection with Merridoo and the Yulparija people. ( ABC News: Franque Batty ) For Peter Nyaparu Bumba and Mervyn Numbargardie, it's the first time they've seen Robert since they joined the search in 1999. ( ABC News: Franque Batty ) Janet remains humbled by the generosity of the strangers who helped search for Robert all those years ago. ( ABC News: Franque Batty ) The reunion has given both Robert and Merridoo a sense of closure — and a new beginning. ( ABC News: Franque Batty ) "It's strange, I really struggled to explain to people what I experienced in the desert," he reflects. "But these guys get it straight away. It is such spiritual country, and I feel very grateful that I was protected and kept safe. "There was unfinished business. It feels like coming full circle, but also establishing a new bond. It's like a new beginning." Credits Reporting and research: Erin Parke Photography and videography: Andrew Seabourne, Franque Batty, Kenith Png, Andrew Williams, with additional imagery courtesy of AAP, West Australian Newspapers Limited and WA Police. Editing and production: Lucy Sweeney Nowhere Man is the latest season of the ABC's Expanse podcast, hosted on Yawuru-Djugan land by Erin Parke, with sound design and production by Grant Wolter, supervising producer Piia Wirsu and executive producer Edwina Farley.
News.com.au
11 hours ago
- News.com.au
The Advertiser Foundation Blanket Appeal: Kids fleeing violence the tragic new face of Adelaide's homelessness crisis
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They accounted for 41 per cent of the 5583 children who came through the doors, including with parents, that year. SA's Women's Safety Services also estimated that 40 per cent of people living in its shelters that year were children. The following year, in 2023-24, about 30 per cent of those who sought help through the SA Homelessness Alliance because they were suffering family violence were aged between 15 and 25. In its submission to the royal commission, the Salvation Army warned there 'is insufficient safe accommodation' for those escaping abusive households and social housing waitlists are 'at an highest'. 'Our services anecdotally hear of women and children having to remain in motels for two to three months before a place becomes available in a refuge,' it says. 'Most concerningly, the absence of affordable housing exits means that many … feel they have no option but to return to the residence of the person using violence.' St Vincent de Paul's submission says its 20-room women's crisis centre is 'frequently at full occupancy' and some were staying 'for up to six months, with little hope of securing long-term housing'. 'Our assistance line receives daily calls from women who have been turned away from other services or are experiencing long waiting periods,' it says. The Hutt St Centre says half the women it saw in a six-month period had 'experienced violence, including controlling behaviours' and its CBD family space is 'often in high demand'. Treasurer Stephen Mullighan has committed to allocating 'a very substantial' amount of funding to act on the recommendations of the $3m, year-long royal commission, which are expected to be handed down in August. Why these doctors won't turn their back on homelessness A group of dedicated medicos refuses to allow themselves to become desensitised to the plight of those experiencing homelessness in Adelaide – in fact, their empathy only grows. For the eighth consecutive year, the Australian Chinese Medical Association Foundation is generously supporting the Advertiser Foundation Blanket Appeal. In 2025, the group whose members include GPs, specialists, medical officers and students is again among the first major donors to kickstart the appeal, this year contributing $10,000. Foundation chairperson Dr Francis Ghan, an orthopaedic surgeon, said he remained shocked and saddened by the sheer number of South Australians facing homelessness and that it impossible not to be moved by the many stories of hardship. 'It is total devastation for a person to lose their home,' he said. Friend and fellow face of the foundation Dr Lap Kwong Han agreed. 'We feel we have some form of responsibility towards the less privileged … in particular the homeless people,' he said. Hutt St Centre CEO Chris Burns welcomes the support and says every dollar donated helps in a very real and practical way, allowing his service to provide toiletries, warm clothing and bedding as well a 'warm meal in the morning'. White Ribbon changes name, supports Blanket Appeal A group that has been advocating in Adelaide for more than a decade and a half to end men's violence against women – motivated by a tragedy overseas – has generously donated to The Advertiser Foundation Blanket Appeal. Formerly known as White Ribbon Breakfast, hosting a breakfast each November for the past 16 years to raise awareness of gender-based violence, it has just relaunched as Wake Up To Change. The $5000 gift will be channelled to support programs at women's homelessness and recovery service, Catherine House. Treasure Mike McCarthy said it made sense to support the women-only charity, particularly in light of new statistics showing demand for its services was at an highest with as many as 55 women on its waitlist for safe housing. 'Each year we raise funds to raise awareness and support local initiatives – in 2024 we raised $30,000 and are very happy to be able to show our support for Catherine House and its many programs,' he said. White Ribbon Breakfast held its first event in 2009 when five influential women's organisations – Business and Professional Women (BPW), Zonta International, Soroptimist International, the National Council of Women SA and the Federation of University Women – came together to celebrate a global movement. In 1991, three men in Toronto, Canada, launched the White Ribbon Campaign in response to the 1989 Montreal Massacre, in which 14 women were murdered. They encouraged men to wear white ribbons as a public pledge to never commit, condone, or remain silent about violence against women.
