The Alleyway

The alleyway between two of the Tin City shacks is a narrow sand path roughly a metre wide, walled on both sides by corrugated iron. The path runs the length of the buildings, with the cladding rising on either side to about head height. Where the iron walls meet at the far end, a smaller gap opens onto the dune behind. Sand has built up in low drifts along both walls. A length of rope or wiring hangs from one of the upper iron sheets, anchored to a fastener above. The light along the alleyway is filtered between the buildings and falls in a hard line down one wall.

Alleyways like this one are not designed; they are what's left over after each shack was built next to its neighbour over decades. The space is too narrow for any vehicle and too cramped for storage, but it lets the residents move between the shacks and gives access to the back walls for maintenance. The wind that runs up the coast accelerates as it funnels through gaps like this one, which means the sand also gets pulled through and the cladding takes a heavier beating along these inner walls than on the outer faces. The 11 shacks of Tin City carry on under the Worimi Conservation Lands Plan of Management 2015, which freezes the count but not the maintenance.