Mick at his Blowholes shack

Mick Cambell in the shack his father built near Quobba Station, Carnarvon

Now in his 80s, Mick has spent a huge part of his life living in the beach shack his father built back in 1959, just north of Carnarvon. In fact he still spends a large part of each year there - having arrived in January he has no plans of heading back south until August. When I visit Mick, his mate Faye is there for a few weeks too.

I’ve always been entranced by the beach shack communities along the WA coast - tiny, family-orientated settlements where the roads are not tar-sealed, fences are few and far between and children roam with a freedom rarely seen these days. For the shack dwellers, it is all about the simplicity of life there - the getting back to basics - which more and more of us are craving in a time when the internet makes it so much harder to switch off and relax.

Sadly, in recent years the State Government has changed laws around the “squatter shacks” and they are slowly vanishing from the coastal fringe. This fight to stay alive, and keep it simple, is now one faced by the shack community near the Blow Holes north of Carnarvon.