Wadderin - 1km Fence Of Shoes & Boots

It’s certainly not what you expect to see when driving through the back roads of the eastern Wheatbelt.
But stretching over more than a kilometre on the road between Narembeen and Mt Walker is a fence full of boots and shoes — more than 1000 of them. And we have to say there were some decent boots amongst the collection. On the other side people have started to leave underwear, so of course it would be rude not to!?

It was the idea of Narembeen farmers Helen and Ross Fidge after a driving holiday through Nebraska about eight years ago when they took a wrong turn and came across boots on fence posts.
The boots were designed to protect the posts during bad weather, but WA’s “boot mile” is solely for fun.
“It took a while to take off, ” Mrs Fidge said. “Ross started off with some old shoes, then he put a sign up and the next thing we knew, people started dropping off shoes near the fence.
“Ross would go out to the fence and there would often be a bag of shoes just left there, so he hanged them up.”
That was a few years ago and while some new shoes and boots still arrive, the Fidges are not actively collecting and putting them on the fence.
“The fence stretched to a rise in the road and we thought that was a good place to stop,” Mrs Fidge said.Read more