The quiet town of Robe in South Australia is popular with tourists keen to get away from it all. Years ago, it was a busy port and gateway for seafarers, guided by the town's distinctive red and white obelisk. Now, the famous landmark is at risk of collapsing into the ocean.
Category
📺
TVTranscript
00:00The obelisk behind me was built in 1855 and it was used to help guide people into Gutchin
00:07Bay, which is just in front of me, which is looking nice and calm, but the ocean further
00:12out behind is quite rough and gets quite high winds.
00:15The obelisk also, I learnt last night, used to have rocket-powered rescue gear to help
00:22ships that may have been in trouble off the coast here, but it is a landmark of the town.
00:29Last month, the local rope council, when planning its future, decided to not put forward any
00:35money to try and preserve or save the rope obelisk.
00:40You can't really see it from behind me here, but it is sitting fairly precariously on the
00:45edge of the coast and sand erosion and erosion of the cliffs around it has experts thinking
00:52it could break off and fall into the ocean sometime as soon as 20 years, but maybe in
00:57the next 100 years.
00:59The local council decided not to fund any works to either save it or perhaps look at
01:05honouring it in some way.
01:07That prompted a fairly swift community backlash from locals and there was a town meeting last
01:14night.
01:15Here is what the rope mayor, Lisa Ruffell, had to say about what she's heard from locals
01:21about how much they love the town's obelisk.
01:24It's the love of the community.
01:26We've got the icons on the rope primary school, they use it as the obelisk as their logo.
01:33Rope's roosters use it as a logo.
01:35International people recognise it, they come to see the obelisk, visitors, community, they
01:40just love it.
01:41But then there's people that don't love it.
01:44So like I said last night, there was quite a big public meeting, about 120 people, which
01:48in a small town is a fairly strong turnout and it was fairly unanimous that the people
01:53at the meeting wanted something done to save it.
01:57Whether that is actually physically moving the obelisk to a safer space here on the coast
02:03that's not at danger from erosion, whether that is building a new one.
02:07But a quote was given at the meeting, it's only one quote from a builder, that it could
02:12cost $1.5 million to build a new obelisk on a safer part of the coast.
02:20As I said, the sentiment was very much that something needs to be done to make sure that
02:24the obelisk is still around.
02:27Doug Fotheringham is someone who's been around Rope most of his life and he also worked doing
02:33studies on the coast here and looking at the obelisk and the dangers around when it might
02:38break off.
02:40And he said that, here's what he had to say about, I guess, the precarious position of
02:47the obelisk.
02:49Amazingly, it's still standing.
02:51I think there's been people predicting it wouldn't be there in 10 years' time or so,
02:56but it's still standing.
02:57But really, it'd be very surprising if it still survives another 30 or 40 years.
03:05Might be gone tomorrow, might still be here in 30 years' time.
03:10So as you can hear there, it is a matter of time until the obelisk, something does happen
03:15to the obelisk and it does fall into the ocean.
03:18As time is taken to make a decision, the big winds, surf and rain that hits this part of
03:23the coast, which makes it so stunning and rugged and nice to look at, but it is putting
03:29the Rope obelisk in danger.