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Back Roads: Aug 15

Heather Ewart arrives in the goldfields of WA, 800 km from Perth, on the biggest event in the local calendar, the Leonora Gift.

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Back Roads this week sees Heather Ewart in the town of Leonora in the goldfields of WA.

Eight hundred kilometres from Perth, Leonora is a place where many people pass through, but Heather seeks out the people that call the town home.

Heather arrives on the biggest event in Leonora’s calendar, the Leonora Gift. It’s the richest road mile running race in Australia. Now in its 20th year the race attracts some of the country’s best runners seeking to win the gold nugget prize.

The Gift racing carnival is open to anyone in town and is popular with the local kids, many of whom have been training for the event throughout the year at the local youth centre.

Leonora raised athlete Kiara Reddingius has won the race six times and returns every year to support the local kids. A former nationally ranked heptathlete, Kiara went on to represent Australia in the twowoman bobsleigh event at the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics, having switched to her new winter sport less than a year before.

Heather also meets aboriginal Tjupan man René Reddingius Jnr, who runs the youth centre. Born in Leonora, he lived in Perth for many years before being drawn back to help the town’s youth. René Jnr is building on the work of his dad, René Snr, who was a teacher in the town for five decades. Together they are working hard to try and keep Leonora’s kids from choosing the wrong path. They take Heather to visit Pricklepatch Farm, where Rene Snr runs programs mixing school studies with animal husbandry and other life skills.

Leonora has always attracted those seeking gold, and right next door is a monument to the gold rush. Gwalia is a real ghost town. It was once a busy hub with over fifteen hundred people. But in 1963 the big Sons of Gwalia mine shut and within in a few weeks the town had almost completely emptied out. Heather meets local multimedia artist Roderick Sprigg who takes her back to where he grew up in Gwalia. She also learns about one of the big mine’s early engineers, Herbert Hoover, who would go on to become the 31st President of America.

8pm Monday on ABC.

4 Responses

  1. I’m so glad I saw the program on French Island. Even more surprising is that a lot of the residents are related. Very fascinating and interesting. It’s close to Melbourne yet so remote and had been a mystery to me for decades. I recommend seeing it on IView on demand. It would be nice to see more remote or unique communities on the show, like other islands, Indigenous council communities or anything unique.

        1. Ironically one team almost sailed past enroute from Phillip Island to Stony Point but changed plans after they realised they misread the ferry timetable!

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