New Norcia is Australia’s only Monastic town and a great day trip from Perth. It’s probably one the weirdest places you’ll go to, a virtual ghost town of deteriorating grand Spanish buildings in the Western Australian wheatbelt. Both times I’ve been it’s been completely empty. I haven’t seen another person apart from the people who work in the roadhouse and the museum/art gallery. Very very eerie.
It was founded as a mission for Aboriginal people in 1847 by Spanish Benedictine monks. The last Spanish monk died in 2010 at age 99. The monks are the only people who live in the town, and live autonomously with some support from the ‘Friends of New Norcia’. The monks produce famous breads and olive oil sold in the town with franchised bakeries in Perth.
In 1986 two men bound and gagged the caretaker of New Norcia’s Museum and Art Gallery and stole the finest collection of post-renaissance religious art in Australia, slashing 26 paintings from their frames. All except one (which was kicked to pieces) were eventually returned to the town in an extremely damaged state. They were only completely restored and put back on display in 2006.
Many people also claim some of the buildings in the town are haunted.
