Before 1982, old Leigh Creek sat on an area where the open-cut pit is today. Image via
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The town sign is imaginatively built out of dump truck tyres. Photos by the author
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Marree, 1.5 hours north. This locomotive was stranded when the train line closed.
Steven Hoddell with his daughter
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Anthony Brady
"I've got to follow the hospital," the father of four says. "When Leigh Creek goes, the hospital's going to be gone and there's not going to be much school for the kids now."Brady has four kids, three girls and an 11-year-old boy with epilepsy who Brady cares for full-time. He had brought them out here so they could grow up the way he did."I brought my kids back up this way to get away from city life," he says. "City life is too fast, you know? Out here, it's slow, you know? It's good, they can take their time growing up. In the city you've got to grow up quick or you miss out."Maybe coal's got such a bad name that no one cares about the people who depend on it.
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An abandoned pioneer home and the mine, faintly in the background
