Cafe

Burri’s life was swallowed for 5 years going up and down to Sydney court cases, some of his drawings from those times are still in the cafe. Murray, Sam and Johnny Chai led a team which transformed the simple kitchen we’d made out of the original laundry at the back of the building, into a major volunteer based activists fundraising kitchen. The campaign gathered huge momentum and the mountain was saved. The potential disaster site that formerly held pools of cyanide is currently being reforrested!

Graeme Dunstans’ terrific skills with cardboard could never be enticed to save the forest walk, but he did make the Dole Temple which hangs in the corner of the cafe. Hundreds of Dole forms, unemployment benefit applications, are pasted to the walls and the temple. Originally the Cafe was named "Legends of the Unemployed" and Elspeth’s painting of God on the ceiling handing out the forms is for real, use the dole wisely it says. Many hippies have done this and used the dole and the freedom it gives to frugally establish their hippy shacks and gardens as well as saving forests and spending time with their children.