In Praise of the Humble Shack
(Life can be experiential - learning by doing; underpinned by an indefatigably and laterally
inquisitive nature, enduring until they put you in a box and either burn or bury you. The
driving force exploration, leading occasionally to what becomes intuitive.)
Time out.
Recreating from the rigors of daily toil.
From time to time, with luck, we can slip sideways, take a little time out and recharge.
For me, that time is best spent close to nature. As close to wilderness as I can get - or
alternatively, as briefly an interloper in a true community.
In these instances, the most fundamental shelter does more than suffice; it can nurture the
soul.
A good lightweight tent, given the security of knowing it is leakproof, well pitched on a
drained site with openings away from the weather is the most basic of shelters and can be
fine.
Lying with confidence in oneʼs down sleeping bag mere centimeters from the thinnest of
fine woven waterproofed fabric protection can induce the most peaceful sleeps even
during the most severest of weather.
Once, “home” was for nine months of traveling, more than 250 days and nights, a short
wheel based diesel Land Rover. Every night for that nine months in pelting Irish rain,
shimmering Afghani desert, Hindu Kush snows, the plywood “bed” was dropped from the
roof for sleep.
Fuel, water for washing and drinking, food, cooking utensils, clothes, all the basic
necessities were carried aboard.
Home was a compartment, 2 meters long, about 1200 mm wide x 1200mm high and it
provided secure, comfortable basic shelter. It was “home”.
Many of the nicest places Iʼve slept in are shacks.
Rude, improvised but considered shelters around which winds could howl, down on which
rain could pelt, snow softly settle or hot sun beat; but where inside,one is totally relaxed
and at ease with oneself and the world.
Dumb places inhabited by eccentrics or eccentric places inhabited by dumb people. I know
of no better time out.
Theyʼre the sort of make-do places that for me can be imbued with a precious ineffable
charm - too often out of the realm of tidy minded Council Planners, possessing what at
best might be called “rustic charm”; really quite wonderful and fragile.
Some existed quite recently alongside the insensitive Rifle Range Estate on Kororoit
Creek. There were others with their fishing boats and old tractors and appurtenant sheds,
dogs and struggling little flower beds along the foreshore between Altona and Werribee.
Blanket Bay, near Cape Otway used to have some of the best. Theyʼre gone now without a
trace, their insubstantial structures permitting easy destruction, as has Doug Seabrookʼs
old shack of memorable nights on the banks of nearby Parker River.
The cattlemenʼs huts of the mountains and high plains with their romantic and even heroic
connotations are on the other hand readily accepted and even eulogised.
But the genuine and loveliest shacks, built with desperate measures by often desperate
people. or alternatively as peaceful places of temporary refuge for true romantic
recreators, squatters of one kind or another who could not be bothered with permits or
approvals, are fast disappearing or all but gone.
Modest in size, intrinsically protective from the vastness of Nature outside, resourcefully
constructed over time using scrounged materials and bush timbers, these humble and
humbling places with a fireplace, watertank and a long-drop are surely the first Australian
examples of sustainable “architecture”.
Childhood huts, cubbies and caves offered the same real and imagined shelter.
Huts are similar, shearerʼs quarters can be included with cabins the next in the
sophistication hierarchy.
We stay from time to time, or did before the “drought”, in shearersʼ quarters to which I am
privileged to be invited, on a barren property in a place we call “New Caledonia” which is
no where near Caledonia at all, rather creekside, in the toughest and most fragile of
landscapes not far from Cooma.
The first time I visited, we slid in late one night in snow and woke next morning to the
stillness and quiet of an aged barren landscape covered in white. It then rained, a rare
occurrence in this place and we stayed inside, inspecting tackle, fidgeting and pretending
to read. Comfortable, until the weather cleared.
Here, the beds sag, some worse than others. the walls are thin and earplugs essential kit
to escape from the tremendous snoring induced by glorious meals and copious quantities
of good Australian red wine. (Do you know a bad one ?). The fireplace works, the fridge
works, the stove works, the shower is hot and the toilet is just off the broad decked
verandah which is elevated three steps above the ground. A few straggly trees struggle,
just to survive, but we have wonderful times there in all weathers when this built place of
no beauty is briefly, ours and “home”.
Some of the best shacks, built by anglers, are on the Central Plateau of Tasmania in strips
and clusters along tracks by Great Lake, Arthurs Lake, Little Pine Lagoon and lonely
alongside the nearer Western Lakes.
The remaining old ones were tough places providing essential shelter and refuge from the
elements in a tough landscape where a foot of snow can fall in a few hours in January or it
can be 40 degrees.
A favorite of mine was, one habitable room with a central table and chairs, a couch, a
fridge and kitchen bench and dresser at one end and sets of bunks at the other, a shower
cubicle down a step to one side, the fire place opposite, the dunny, several steps down the
hill, and connected, a huge lean-to lock up shed where wood was stored a Susuki parked
and waders hung. thatʼs it, and several of you have enjoyed the privilege.
Unlike us mainlanders Tasmanians have fought for their shacks and thus retained their
precious communities, albeit with modifications like composting toilets.
And these are places of real history.
In Tasmania the shack is now culturally recognized, and they have become posher, with a
few even designed by architects.
Shelter on the Cradle Mountain Lake St Clair can be provided in designed 60 sq m huts
that can comfortably sleep 8 weary walkers.
Shacks have a place in our recreational future.
They can touch the earth so gently. By definition they are modest in size and frugal in their
use of materials, improvised but considered shelter, by design, precious, sustainable
autonomous architecture than can be there one moment as “home” and gone the next,
leaving in nature, not a trace of their being at all.
Dennis Carter