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A few hundred kilometres north of Perth, Western Australia...on a rugged and secluded stretch of coastline...is perched a settlement that time forgot. Its shacks are delightfully ramshackle; makeshift creations fashioned out of corrugated iron and furnished with mismatched hand-me-downs. There’s no electricity, no running water, and, until recently, it was accessible only by 4WD. It’s a holiday in the finest of Australian beach shack traditions.
But it’s all about to end. Put bluntly, the residents of Wedge Island are squatters. And now, despite lifeline after lifeline, the state’s biggest shack community is about to become victim to the government’s squatter removal policy that has already seen more than 600 shacks demolished.
But the shackies are shaping up for the fight of their lives. The Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s Kirsti Melville took the long and bumpy trek north to Wedge Island.
Wedge Island was produced by Kirsti Melville of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.
Links:
The Wedge Island Community
The expanding and more anchored shack community on Wedge Island showcase their community and show that they are not mere squatters.
Books:
 Shadow Cities: A Billion Squatters, a New Urban World
by: Robert Neuwirth 2006
Neuwirth met people from Nairobi to Rio and more, and shows us squatter settlements have become decent places to live for formerly landless people.
 Oceans: Recipes and Stories from Australia's Coastline
by: Andrew Dwyer, John Hay 2010
This enjoyable cookbook travel guide celebrates Australia and its maritine history.
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