Barrington Tops is a huge and wonderous piece of bushland just an hour and a half drive out of Newcastle, Australia.

Welp, there was a cafe in a little town in the foothills of the Barrington Tops called "The Dead Dog Cafe".

 That, there, is a picture of one of the corrugated iron relief images that were screwed to the building to advertise the cafe.

When I visited, the guy behind the counter made an immediate impression; he was angular and fast moving, scanning between the shop floor and the kitchen constantly, his hands grabbing surely at the huge, four group coffee machine, operating it by touch.

It was a damn fine coffee.

I watched him brusquely tell a customer that they didn't serve bacon. They were a vegan cafe. He leaned around them to serve the next customer...

I heard various accounts of this gentleman, suffice to say my impressions of him were that he polarised people. For instance; he thought 'Dead Dog Cafe' was the name to pick for the cafe. The name 'deaddog' is considered by some to be a pejorative name for Dungog. Some of the locals hated it. Some thought it was edgy and hilarious.

Then, what about that image? The black dog... Isn't that commonly associated with depression? Having dead black dogs all around your cafe... again, polarising.

Anyhoo. That's some background.

New cafe owners and a name change. It's now called: "The Barn". Full disclosure; my nephew and his fiance took over the business. They let me paint a mural there! It's not finished, so I'm not posting it yet.

I found four of the discarded iron dogs in a pile at the back of the cafe. I took them home and painted them. I'm hoping that they can go back up on the walls as 'the happy dogs of Dungog'.

Here they are:

I'm going to replace this image with a better one once I can be arsed getting better lighting for them. Also, Don't tell the new owners! It's a surprise.