Travellers beware – the iconic metal sculptures that signal the city is behind you and the beach or the bush awaits, are no longer standing in the paddocks near the highway town of Dublin.
But rest assured, the scrap metal spaceship, Party Platform rat, tinman, enormous cockroach and Ned Kelly on horseback, will hopefully return to the region, with a new lease on life.
The unusual collection of effigies, began cropping up north of the city in 1998, as a political protest to the then Olsen Liberal Government, opposing the now fully operational landfill dump in the Lower Light/Dublin area.
Sculptor, Steve Jones, was one of many concerned locals, opposed to the dumping of the city’s waste in an area with an apparent shallow water table, so close to Gulf St Vincent.
The Samphire Coast, which runs from Port Gawler to Port Wakefield, is one of South Australia’s premier bird watching sites, and plays host to over 60,000 migratory shore birds each year.
President of the Coalition of Coastal Communities (encompassing Middle, Thompsons and Webb beaches as well as Port Parham and the hinterland towns of Mallala, Dublin and Two Wells), John Drexel, is part of the voluntary group who instigated the removal of the iconic sculptures, with the idea that they’ll return to the region, bigger, better and as a more interactive attraction for passers by.
“Lots of people pass through the Dublin area every day,” he said.
“We want to enhance tourism and have these people be able to stop and look at the statues, and also have a look around our region.”
Mr Drexel said the Coalition of Coastal Communities was working with Mallala and District’s Lions Club on a project that would incorporate a camp ground in Dublin with an up-close display of the iconic sculptures and some interactive signage showcasing the four neighbouring coastal towns.
“There was a fear the sculptures were going to be scrapped by the landowner,” he said.
“We thought it was a good promotional exercise for the region, to remove the icons, convoy them in car trailers to Edinburgh and have them re-sprayed and rust-proofed and engineered for safety, and return them to the area for people to safely stop and look at.”
While the Environmental Observer effigy still remains on the western side of the highway, some mystery surrounds the whereabouts of the giant blowfly, which is believed to be on-site at the expanding Integrated Waste Service site.
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