Wittenoom doesn’t exist. It was a town…once. A mine used to breathe life into its economy. But the fibre that once held the Australian outback community together has a nasty habit of nesting in your lungs and causing cancer. The potential risk of exposure to blue asbestos meant the government disconnected power and de-gazetted...
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Alex Hunter is greeted by the amusing sight of two young girls clambering onto the back of his Jeep and flashing cheeky grins in the morning light. The clock is approaching 7am and the pair is already waiting for the principal to begin the daily round-up of their boisterous peers. Hunter jumps behind the...
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The giant beasts drop themselves awkwardly to the red dust a stone’s throw from my front row position. There’s a sun-drenched bloke to my left with a can of XXXX in his hand telling his five-year-old son to get out of his way. On my right, an elderly couple lecture endless facts about the...
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You slap yourself in the face, stretch your rubbery eyelids and wait for the long, snaking highway to open up for you; a sharp blade of asphalt pushing itself through the heart of a deep, red desert. The flat plains of central Australia roll on for hours that soon become days, and the only...
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Black Saturday – February 2009, by Daniel Clarke: The Australian state of Victoria has fallen victim to what can only be described as hell’s fury – a series of raging firestorms that serve as the gravest warning of the frightening threat climate change presents our world. The authorities knew it was coming and the...
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The constant rain clatters against the burnt-out shell of a recently vandalised car; tiny tents flap violently in the biting wind and a piercing early morning whistle signals the daily visit of the local police force. Valerie Thompson has just descended from a tree-top canopy hanging precariously 50 metres in the air. She’s been...
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Australia breathes life. It’s massive red rock like a heart, beating from the centre. The oldest of lands inhabited by the oldest of people, that soon became the newest of Western civilisations. A convict dumping ground for political reformers, men who stole handkerchiefs, and even suspicious looking Irish Catholics. Australia – where the farmers...
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The flames were leaping up from the concrete deserts. Hell had arrived. Hell on earth. We had our own little franchise that had very quietly opened nearby. Apparently it was known as BP. We called it hell but others called it Blatant Propaganda. And the only way to get to hell was through hell’s...
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