ABOVE: This house is not in Bonalbo, there is no ocean in Bonalbo.
Have you felt the pull of great architecture?
The Temple of Rameses at Abu Simbel, the Sydney Opera House, Angkor Wat or Lismore Square?
The exhilaration or reverence evoked by a great building is just as real as the claustrophobia we feel in a small, airless room.
Buildings get to us.
And some we just can’t forget.

Mystery continues to swirl around Bonalbo’s famous Beach Houses like fairy floss in a flooded playground, but perhaps now we are one step closer to answering this pizzler of a puzzle.
We know there are two of them: the Pink House and the Yellow House. We know they were built in the early ‘60s by a surfie builder who favoured timber, pastels and asbestos-rich fibro, and we know that when he’d finished he headed west from Bonalbo, apparently on a mission to bring beach culture to the inland and Outback.
We know he drove a Ford Customline with board racks and a static strap and that he towed a trailer made from a cut down Jennison Pathfinder caravan with 14 inch Holden wheels, and now we know so much more, because of his old sweetheart, Mavis Chumleavy.

Until recently, Mavis, a retired architect, was locked down at St Salacious Sunset Village in Bilpin.
“I was walking the walls and climbing the floor from boredom, malnourishment and lack of vaccination,” she said.
“One day I just went completely Bad Gidget and pinched a bit of paper with the Wi-Fi password out of the doctor’s pocket on her annual visit and logged onto the registered nurse’s computer – he’s never there.
“Anyway, I got onto Gumtree to see if I could score an Innovations Catalogue number 34782 (circa July 2003) in good condition.
“Ended up down a ferret hole and found myself staring at this ad for a trailer in Brewarrina.
“These kids had used their dad’s Gumtree account to put up this Jennison Pathfinder trailer for 75 bucks, pickup only.”
“The Jennison Pathfinder rang a bell, and as soon as I saw the photo I knew it was the one.
“I mean, I’m pretty incontinent, but there are some things you hold on to.
“Let’s face it, me and Waxy had some very choice times in the back of that thing.
“And the logo badge bizzo had this Aboriginal bloke with a shield and spear, looking off into the distance – something different.”
