Surrounded by the ruby-red moonscape of outback South Australia is a town locals consider to be one of Australia’s “last frontiers”.
With no council or police station, and one road in and out, you can see why.
Andamooka is an outpost about six and a half hours north-west of Adelaide.
Despite its remoteness, the town is teeming with creativity.
Leila Day has lived and worked in Andamooka for the past five years and says the little town is somewhat left to its own devices.
“We don’t have a rubbish collection. We’re in the unincorporated part of South Australia, so we don’t have a council to look after us, and basically we do everything ourselves,” she told ABC iview’s Back Roads.
“No policeman … it is the Wild West,” she said laughing.
Leila Day is an opal miner and one of the 262 people that call Andamooka home. (ABC)
Andamooka is the largest town administered by the Outback Communities Authority, a government body that oversees the management of remote communities.
Instead of a council, the authority works with the Andamooka Progress and Opal Miners Association, which advocates for the town’s needs and priorities.
Remoteness breeds creativity
Andamooka’s origins date back to the 1870s when a pastoral lease was taken out on the area, which became known as Andamooka Station.
Decades later, in the 1930s, a group from Coober Pedy travelled to the area to try their luck mining opals within the station boundaries.
By the 1960s the town was producing some of the most valuable gemstone opal in the world and its population swelled in size.
But, as the supply of significant opal finds dwindled, so did the number of people in town.
Now, 262 people — including Leila — call it home.
“Outside of the opal mining there’s always someone doing something curious and fun and different … and there’s a really busy arts community here,” she said.
One of those creatives is a stoner — but not what you’re likely thinking.
Andamooka local Cal Prohasky, known as Cal the Stoner, has spent thousands of hours honing his craft of intricate carving or ‘intricarving’, as he calls it.
Cal creates magnificent sculptures out of thousands of pieces of uniquely carved sandstone.
Cal’s sculpture, the Andamooka Tiger. (ABC)
After spending a mammoth three and a half years and 8,000 hours creating his piece the Andamooka Tiger, Cal’s moved on to a new work —The Goddess.
“She’s six foot nine … she’s a goddess, she’s got to be intimidating,” he said.
‘Like living on the Moon’
Originally from Melbourne, he made the desert change in 2019, packing all his belongings — and tonnes of sandstone — into his bus and driving to Andamooka.
“I bought [my place] sight-unseen, actually,” Cal said.
Cal the Stoner has spent thousands of hours honing his craft of sandstone sculpting. (ABC)
“But I got a great spot. I’m lucky, I could have been out in the boondocks there.
“It’s like living on the Moon. It’s the desert, it’s different.”
When the pub closed recently, the community stepped in to organise a pop-up liquor licence to turn Cal’s psychedelic home bar into a replacement nightspot for the locals.
Cal threw the doors open to his psychedelic bar. (ABC)
“Everyone looks at this place like a dead-end place in the world, but Andamooka is a lifestyle. It’s just a beautiful lifestyle,” local resident Margot Duke said.
“You can come to the place with a handshake and look for opal and have a go,” fellow resident Conan Fahey said.
“It’s one of the last frontiers.”
Stream the new season of Back Roads free on ABC iview or watch tonight on ABC TV at 8pm.
