Anyone who’s travelled the Port Wakefield Highway north of Adelaide is well aware of the roadside sculptures near the town of Dublin. They have been fixtures for many years, standing on private property as resilient political protest figures from the 90s.

It’s been impossible not to notice the giant rat, UFO, tin man and more on the side of the highway, but now they are on the move, not too far away.

You can find my original story on how and why they came about, here.

Sadly like the rest of us, they are starting to show their age and are gradually falling apart, so rather than see them scrapped by the landowner, a group consisting of the Coalition of Coastal Communities, and the Mallala and District Lions Club have exciting plans for these iconic sculptures.

They will be missed as roadside sentinels, but the plan is to repair, respray, rust proof and engineer them for safety and then make it safer for people to stop and take a closer look at them, by transferring them to the nearby town of Dublin.

The Coalition of Coastal Communities encompasses the areas of Middle Beach, Thompsons Beach, Webb Beach, Port Parham, Mallala, Dublin and Two Wells and together they hope the renewal and re-siting of the sculptures will bring tourism to the region and encourage people to stop and look around.

It is planned for the sculptures to return in a better state than they are currently in, and for some interactive signage to be erected which will showcase the neighbouring coastal towns. There could possibly even be a campground.

Hopefully we’ll get to enjoy these much loved characters in their new home site soon.

Cheers

Glenys