Karnivool guitarist, Drew Goddard kept finding himself drawn back to Coolgardie in the WA Goldfields. When he ran out of reasons to visit, he moved there…

Self-described environmentalists, Jean and Russell salvage and repurpose what would otherwise end up at the tip. Between them they own five gophers (disability scooters) which they ride around town doing their shopping and running errands, because they’re more economical than a car.

I spotted this snappy-dressed gent, tapping away on his iPhone, as I drove down the main street of Boulder in the Goldfields recently…

…I supposed he’d meet some interesting characters in his line of work. He agreed, “I’ve had a gun pointed at me a few times! One time I even came away three grand better off”…

With a lifelong passion for both the birds and the bees, dating all the way back to his childhood growing up at Clontarf Boys’ Town, apiarist Wally Kerkoff is well respected in bird and conservation circles. He has spent over 30 years designing and constructing artificial logs for placement in the Carnaby’s Black Cockatoo breeding areas of Moora and Mogumber in WA. With the shortage of suitable natural nesting trees, this work has been essential in building numbers of the endangered Carnaby’s.⠀⠀⠀⠀

Most of the characters I’ve photographed along the way have been discovered after we’ve arrived somewhere. Lazy Les was someone we’d heard about over the years and we had our fingers crossed that he’d be around when we visited gold prospecting friends of ours near Leonora.

Just a couple of kilometres from Cue we started spotting life-size metal cutouts of blue sheep, and red dogs on kayaks. A little further down the road we saw Eric, sporting a crazy hat and obviously trying to get some phone reception, as he paced around his quad bike complete with Aussie flag, proudly fluttering in the wind. I’d barely started asking the question, and Steve was already slowing down to do a U-turn!

Pretty much everyone we got to know in Marble Bar, we met in the Iron Clad Hotel, including Tim. Like so many people in this outback town, gold is in Tim’s blood. While Tim uses a metal detector his mother Katie used a yandi. Shallow multi-purpose dishes, yandis were traditionally used by Aboriginal women to carry water and bush tucker, but they could also use them to sort chaff from seeds, and in these parts, to separate gold from dirt.

A friend to both Pixie and Honest John, Bushy is another Wyndham local adding colour to this small town. Honest John took me to meet Bushy at his home which still shows many signs of its past life as the Post Office.