Dunolly is a happy place. The Welcome stranger, a very large gold nugget was found in nearby Moliagul in 1869. So large, it was, that it had to be broken apart with picks to weigh. Total weight is reported as low as 66kg and as high as 78kg. Weights and measures and due diligence were evidently not high priorities for the miners. A hundred and fifty years later the search for gold continues.

Currently Dunolly is a likely destination and location for those wishing to avoid the complications of city or suburban life. A place to enjoy clean air, the quiet life, a pleasant sense of community and the chance to stumble on the occasional small nugget of gold. A focus for the arty – crafty creativity of the district is the Dunolly Ministry of Fun. Philip and Anna Ashton probably didn’t actually intend to buy up all of the century old baker shops of Dunolly. But one of their two old baker shops presently accommodates the Ministry of Fun. A long building of many rooms. The street frontage is of course the showroom. Followed by rooms for screen printing, felting, textiles, pottery, jewellery, blacksmithing, leatherwork, music and welding of the MIG, TIG, Oxy, Arc and plasma varieties. The mission of the Ministry is to give the members of the community the opportunity and encouragement to give full flight to their creative whims. Community mosaic installations are a recurring theme.  The ministry was recently host to a mosaic workshop given by Deborah Halpern.

Anna had for some time been hatching a plan to build a Goddess of Fun. Why? Because she could! Along the way improving on some of the precedents of previous fired-in-situ goddesses. Candida was inspired by the Tony Orlando song “Oh my Candida …  life will be sweeter …. where the air is fresh and clean…”. She is proving to be a happy, somewhat Bacchanalian soul, a shining example of Fun for the community.