TOD Tour 2.0 Day 3 - Amigo’s Castle & First Shaft Lookout

Look, we did other things as well - shopping, precautionary visit to the GP, coffee - but there is no doubt, finally getting an inside view of Amigo’s Castle was a definite highlight of our last day in Lightning Ridge.

We had seen it from the outside twice previously but swung by again today on the off chance. Sure enough, the informative and engaging Anita was on hand to give us the history of the building and its creator, Vittorio Steffanato aka Amigo. How did this very shy man build this very loud building? How did he come to be at the centre of a controversy and how did his now 27 year old building, still unfinished, come to achieve heritage listing?

Vittorio came to Lightning Ridge in the early seventies, pegged out his 50 x 50 metre claim and dug his first well in search of black opal, right in the forecourt of what is now his castle. As with the three that followed, the well was dug 30 feet (about 9.1 metres) without mechanical aid. None of them returned success and by the mid 1980’s, Amigo, as he was now known, had become disenchanted with mining. As a result, he would mine in the morning and started to build with the ironstone in his and others slag heaps in the afternoon. Once he started, he could not stop and as the height of the walls increased he used planks on 44 gallon drums, on planks on 44 gallon drums, on planks on 44 gallon drums ...

By the early 2000’s, the world had changed and Green group began a movement that would end in court, claiming Amigo was changing the environment for little critters, by removing iron stone rocks from across the district and relocating them to his castle. The complaint was dismissed when the judge found in favour of Amigo, ruling that he had not removed the rocks, just relocated them. Next came the council, who discovered Amigo had built a dwelling where he should have just mined but there case was complicated in that the council boundary ran straight through the middle of the property. Regardless, they announced the intention to bring in the dozers. The residents of Lightning Ridge would not hear of it and in a fiery public meeting at which Amigo sate quietly while others did the talking, a compromise was worked out. To save the property, the council applied a heritage listing over it, which would Amigo from building further but would preserve what he had done. It must be the youngest heritage listed building in Australia!

Amigo lives out the back, where he is slowly building a more conventional and approved dwelling, while visitors speak with Anita. He wants only to live in peace.

How did Vittorio become Amigo? In his early days, he would attend dance looking for a companion and would always where a Mexican sombrero. Ridge locals tagged him Amigo and it stuck.

The castle itself is a fascinating building, reminiscent in its romantic intentions to Paranella’s madness outside of Innisfail in Qld but using much better construction techniques. Probably the most interesting thing to see in Lightning Ridge, it reflects both the unusual character who have come here and the manner in which they band together when authority threatens.

The first shaft

Late in the afternoon, we followed Green Car Door trail up to the First Shaft Lookout, back to the west of the Ridge. It marks the spot where Charlie Nettleton sunk the first shaft, up in the hill to the east of what is now the Castlereagh Highway. There are lots of shafts in the area but few active claims and none of the infrastructure characteristic of the rest of the are. There are few of the ramshackle dwellings or the discarded, broken machinery. Nearby is tin can house, started by Gary Holms in 1977 and made largely of cans. The initial stages of the walls were large rocks but these proved too heavy for his young children to cart so Gary reverted to cans. To provide light, bottles were placed in "windows". It was never finished but several have attempted restorations, including Pete Gizinski, who has owned it for 15 years. Judging by appearance, its a long haul job.

Click here for today's photos

We've learned a lot in this interesting, far corner of the state. Its been a good place to start and has set the tone for the TOD Tour 2.0.