The Great Barrier Roof

A Tourist Attraction? Yup, We'll Drink To That

Photographs copyright: DAVID McMAHON

Relax – it’s not really the scene of a plane crash. The downed ``aircraft’’ and the rickety pub can be seen at Albury-Wodonga, on the border of New South Wales and Victoria. The Ettamogah Pub is based on a fictional pub in a famous Outback cartoon series. It all started with a bloke called Ken Maynard, an Australian police officer who began contributing cartoons in 1958 to a magazine called `The Australasian Post’. His fictional ``Ettamogah Pub’’ - and its strong-jawed outback drinkers in their blue singlets and shorts - became so famous that someone had the great idea of reconstructing the pub in real life. Interestingly, the project posed a special problem for the architects because there were no straight lines in Maynard’s rendering! However, as you can see, the wonky pub is structurally sound. It is a huge tourist attraction – despite the sign outside that proclaims with laconic humour, ``Free Beer Tomorrow’’. The ute (that's Aussie-speak for a ``utility'' vehicle) parked on the roof is a wonderful touch, faithful to Maynard's series. And if you look closely at the first picture, you'll see the sign says ``Keep Right'' even though the arrow points left!