This week on Back Roads Heather Ewart hitches a motorcycle ride up to Nimmitabel in New South Wales, one of the highest altitude towns in Australia.
Local motorcyclist Pete Lowry runs a leather shop in the tiny town and gets Heather kitted up for the annual Steampunk at Altitude festival.
The wacky festival attracts Steampunk enthusiasts from far and wide, who dress up in costumes inspired by the Victorian science fiction genre.
Heather learns that the Steampunk festival is just one of the daring ideas that Nimmitabel has had to revitalise the town, following the closure of the local timber mill in the 1990s. People were forced to leave town and businesses closed, including the pub. “That’s pretty serious when the pub goes broke,” says Howard Charles, a semi-retired farmer and ‘ideas man’.
Howard’s most infamous idea was the ‘Nimmity Bell’. A town bell sounds like a straightforward project, but it caused unprecedented havoc in the community and became known as ‘The Bell of Contention’. Luckily most locals can now see past the drama. Even Howard, who in a shocking twist, had a life-threatening run-in with the bell. Heather discovers that thinking outside the box is helping Nimmitabel survive in this drought-prone and famously cold region.
8pm Tuesday on ABC.
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