By Callum Ludwig
Warburton may be where he resides nowadays but Robert Prudhoe, affectionately known as Boinga Bob, has lived and travelled the world and has plenty of stories and experiences to share.
Boinga’s iconic treehouse home is the most obvious sign of his adventures, attracting many visitors from near and far.
Boinga said his house is an expression of his inner journey and a very big collection of the different places he’s been to in his lifetime.
“All my life I’ve been totally amazed at the fact that we’re alive at all and that there’s actually a whole planet full of people who genuinely don’t seem to know what they’re doing here, so I’ve done a lot of travelling to look for the answers to those sort of questions,” he said.
“I think a lot of it has to do with gratitude, we need to be grateful for the good things that we do have because we’ve got a lot of good things and I think that by being grateful the universe will give us more.”
Boinga’s travels have taken him up Mt Everest, to live on Mt Kilimanjaro, lying awake at night hearing animals just outside in East Africa, traversing Britain in a Kombi van and to places like Guatemala, Mexico and Alaska.
Boinga recalls that in Nairobi, the capital city of Kenya, he had to make a big decision about his adventures all those years ago.
“I loved the adventure, I was really alive, every molecule, every atom of my body was dancing, it was on fire. I had an aeroplane ticket with Transworld Airlines, and I went and I cashed in my aeroplane ticket because I wanted to continue the adventure,” he said.
“I felt a little bit insecure for a couple of days because I had no aeroplane tickets but then suddenly I was full of joy and I realised it was the best thing I’d ever done in my lifetime because I kept on travelling for another one and a half years.”
It was a decision not short of risk, as the Australian High Commission in Nairobi told him at the time that if he fell ill and wanted to get back to a hospital in Australia, they’d contact his parents for money and if it wasn’t provided, they wouldn’t do anything for him.
Despite his extensive travelling, Boinga said Warburton has always been special for him.
“I love the nature here and the mountain, I’ve been here for a long time now, there are lovely people here and it’s where I’ve done a lot of artwork as well over the years,” he said.
“Whenever I’ve come back from my many overseas travels and I get back to Warburton and I think ‘Wow it’s all here, what a beautiful part of the world,”
“It’s very important to me that I live here, the house is an expression and I built it because of my love for the environment and for the community.”
Boinga’s treehouse home has been featured in a plethora of newspaper articles in The Age, The Herald Sun, the Daily Mail and of course the Star Mail as well as on TV shows such as Better Homes and Gardens, World’s Most Extreme Homes and Burke’s Backyard.
A Facebook group with over 3400 members called ‘Save BOINGA BOBS house!’ is dedicated to the continual upkeep and restoration of the iconic treehouse.
A documentary on Boinga Bob and his outsider art by Warburton filmmaker Peter Downey called ’Stupa’ is also currently in the works.
