Pixie's Tin Shed in Wyndham

Pixie in her Tin Shed at Wyndham Port in the Kimberley

If anything’s going to turn your day around in Wyndham, it’s discovering Pixie’s Tin Shed down near the port. 

There’s a large blackboard in front of the shop that keeps both locals and tourists abreast of the tide times and the winning lotto numbers, alongside a noticeboard with funnies, and a large, open hatch-window that gives a glimpse of what lies inside.

The contents of the Tin Shed are wide-ranging, eclectic and, well, random…second-hand books and vinyl records, beautiful prints by once-local artist Jane Dennis, postcards, local calendars, homemade soap, Pixie’s own handmade doilies, assorted household items (new and used), boab nut fridge magnets, bait, bags of ice and icy poles…

And then there’s Pixie herself. Physically petite with a big personality, Pixie has that quick witted, dry humoured, fast-tongued way about her that film-goers around the world hoped all outback Aussies would be like back after watching Crocodile Dundee back in the early eighties. Now “78 or 79” and still chain-smoking (rollies with a slim, black cigarette holder), she regaled us with stories of her decades working behind the bar of the Wyndham Hotel and before that in Alice Springs, clearly more than a match for the half-cut punters.

In a town that is being true to itself and we love for all the things that it isn’t, Pixie is right at home.

I asked about the pinboard on the wall behind her - there was a display of photos featuring Pixie on board yachts big and small, and in the middle of the images was a sign alerting the viewer to the fact it was the noticeboard for Pixie’s Yacht Club. “I wasn’t allowed to call it the Wyndham Yacht Club or the Royal Yacht Club” she told me, also admitting that she doesn’t actually own or boat or even know how to sail. So when visiting boats tie up in Wyndham do the yachties ever take her out sailing? “They have to,” she replied, “I’m the commodore.”