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APRIL 2012
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HEMISPHERESMAGAZINE.COM
of the river valley, where it is, somewhat
controversially, siphoned off to farmers
who raise ca le and grow co on and rice
there. It continues on to LakeAlexandrina,
a 250-square-mile lake just 10 feet deep,
and then arrives at the Goolwa Barrage,
a man-made barrier between freshwater
and the Southern Ocean, 56 miles south
of Adelaide. During good years, the River
Murray should reach the barrage with
58 percent of its natural flow. During a
drought, it can disappear altogether. In a
town like Goolwa, population 6,000, losing
water can mean losing everything.
Which brings us to Randal Cooper.
Cooper, 54, is the man behind Goolwa
Masts & Welding, and here in his shop—
a pole barn ribbed with steel masts and
filled with welders, tools, girlie calendars
and enough grease to grow hair on your
chest as soon as you step inside—he has
built many things. A reputation for keep-
ing quiet, however, is not one of them.
You see, Cooper grew up as a Huck Finn
type of kid: leveraging common sense
and guile to confound adults, clever in
a way that most book-bred kids dream
about, and irreverent just because. A er
infuriating headmasters by questioning
the system, and figuring he wouldn’t
get far with his dyslexia anyway, Cooper
le school at 16 and began apprenticing
to a builder.
Cooper considers himself a “bogan,” an
Australian label that roughly translates
as “swamp person,” “redneck” or “hick,”
depending on which way you want to
go. He’s short on teeth and his close-set
THE RACE IS ON
The first Milang Goolwa
Freshwater Classic in five years gets under way;
right, spectators take in the race from the cliffs
at Clayton Bay amid sweltering heat