Global True Lithuania Encyclopedia of Lithuanian heritage worldwide

Perth and Western Australia

This is a provisional version of the article. It is being rewritten after the 2025-2026 field trip researching Australia's Lithuanian heritage. Please come back after some time to see the final version and post any suggestions in the comment section.

While Western Australia has its largest Lithuanian community in Perth, its most visible Lithuanian heritage sites are in the remotest reaches of its outback, including the Lithuanian-re-established village of Eucla near the Nullarbor Plain with its huge Lithuanian cross and Mount Truchanas named after a Lithuanian.

Lithuanian Traveller's Cross in Eucla

Eucla Lithuanian cross, roadhouse, and village

Eucla is not only the most iconic Lithuanian heritage site in Western Australia but, arguably, also the remotest Lithuanian heritage site in the world. It is located near the midpoint between Adelaide and Perth, 1339 km from the state capital (Perth), 1265 km from the nearest major city (Adelaide), and 492 km from the nearest town (Ceduna, SA, population ~3000).

The current town (village) of (New) Eucla was largely created by Gediminas Patupis, an immigrant from Lithuania who fled the Soviet occupation of his country. In 1967, Gediminas Patupis built the Amber Motel roadhouse here, named after fossilized resin that is a symbol of his old homeland.

Façade of Eucla Motor Hotel (Amber Motel)

While the name „Eucla“ existed since the 19th century, when it was established as a town next to the telegraph line connecting eastern Australia to Western Australia, this was Old Eucla, located close to the ocean, some 4 km down the cliff from New Eucla. With the advent of radio telegraph, this village was already abandoned by the time Patupis came in. Patupis moved some of the remaining relics (e.g., Old Eucla gravestones) to the new Eucla museum at his roadhouse, saving them from getting consumed by the sands. Ruins of the old telegraph station remain in the Old Eucla, however.

Eucla Motor Hotel next to the Eyre Highway (seen stretching into the horizon in the background). The area of Old Eucla is closer to the ocean, left of this image

The New Eucla has many Lithuanian symbols. The Eucla entrance sign includes Columns of Gediminas symbols (this famous national symbol is named after the Lithuanian medieval grand duke Gediminas, after whom Patupis himself was also named).

The most prominent Lithuanian monument of Eucla is its large Lithuanian Traveller's Cross (1969) that stands on the clifftop overlooking the Old Eucla site. In pre-Soviet-occupation Lithuania, it was popular to build roadside crosses, and this tradition seemed appropriate for a place near Australia's major road. As it is typical for Lithuanian traditional crosses, the cross is „merged“ with a pre-Christian symbol of the sun. However, uniquely, the rays of the sun are also inspired by the Columns of Gediminas, making this cross even more Lithuanian in design than many similar crosses.

Lithuanian cross of Eucla

The Eucla cross was inspired by the Augsburg Lithuanian cross built by Lithuanian refugees in the Augsburg displaced persons camp after World War 2. This is the very camp where Gediminas Patupis lived between fleeing Lithuania and ending up in Australia. The Augsburg Lithuanian cross – which was perhaps the first one to include „Columns of Gediminas sun rays“ – had been designed by Jonas Mulokas, who himself later moved to the USA. There, he arguably became the most famous Lithuanian diaspora architect and invented the Modern Lithuanian style of architecture that relies heavily on incorporating traditional Lithuanian symbols such as the Columns of Gediminas into building designs.

Unlike the Mulokas's cross in Augsburg, the Eucla cross is made of metal and thus able to withstand the furious climate of the Australian outback.

Columns of Gediminas inspired sun rays on the Eucla Lithuanian cross

At the bottom of the cross, there are several commemorative plaques: one for Gediminas Patupis himself (describing him as a New Eucla pioneer), one dedicating the cross to all Christians and to those whose efforts made the Eyre highway and New Eucla possible.

Plaque for Gediminas Patupis on the cross

Dedication plaque on the cross (adorned with columns of Gediminas on the bottom corners)

Next to the cross, there is a monument for Gediminas Patupis himself (named "Steve", a name he used to call himself in Australia). Numerous plaques and monuments include the Columns of Gediminas symbol.

Gediminas Patupis memorial with columns of Gediminas

Several additional plaques and memorials surrounding the cross are dedicated to people who felt connected to this place, some of them so much so that their ashes were scattered at the Lithuanian Traveller's cross.

The main street of New Eucla is named Patupis Street.

Patupis Street in Eucla

Gediminas Patupis may be credited as the founder of modern Eucla as the only other business (and housing) in the area in the 1960s was Eucla Pass motel, which Patupis acquired soon after Amber Motel opened, consolidating both businesses under the „Eucla Motor Hotel“ name. Currently, only the „Amber Motel“ buildings are in use, but the main trademark is „Eucla Motel“. The main building has a bar, a restaurant, and a fuel station, while nearby buildings house 22 rooms. There is a garden designed by Pajauta Patupis, the wife of Gediminas Patupis, and a caravan park with 40 places.

Eucla Motor Hotel (image taken from the garden designed by Pajauta Patupis)

The complex includes an A-frame building „Palanga“ named after Lithuania‘s largest resort town. Originally, it was built by Patupis next to the ocean, but it was later moved to the New Eucla site.

Palanga building

Close-up of the Palanga sign

Amber Motel was designed by a Lithuanian-Australian architect, Vaclovas Algimantas Navakas. There were many other Lithuanian displaced persons (DPs) who worked at the project. However, few Lithuanians, besides the Patupis family, ever lived in remote Eucla. In the 1960s-1980s, the village was even smaller - it expanded later, for example, in 1996, when the quarantine station for those entering Western Australia was moved here from Norseman. Still, to this day, some third of the entire Eucla's population are employees of the Lithuanian-established roadhouse.

Gediminas Patupis came to Australia in 1948. He worked as a cook in the hotel, as well as a truck driver who first time crossed the Nullarbor using the then-unpaved Eyre highway in 1951, later he owned a shop in Adelaide. Ultimately, he combined his Eyre Highway, business, and hospitality work experiences in acquiring the land for the Eucla motel in the late 1960s. In addition to the hotel itself, he pioneered other businesses, many of which had "Amber" in their names, e.g., an airline which operated while the South Australian section of the Eyre Highway was still unpaved, allowing people to drive from Perth to Eucla, leave their car there, and fly to Adelaide.

Bar of the motel

Perth Lithuanian Center and other heritage

The only sizeable Lithuanian community in Western Australia exists in Perth. Even there, however, just several hundred Lithuanians settled during the main post-WW2 wave of displaced persons who had fled the Soviet occupation, with various estimates giving the number between 250 and 600 (significantly less than several thousand each in Melbourne or Sydney).

Nevertheless, Lithuanians managed to open a Lithuanian Center in Perth. Uniquely, unlike in the other Australian cities, this center was mostly created not by the DP refugee generation but rather by the generation of their children who were already born outside Lithuania (albeit the immigrant generation was still instrumental in its funding). The Lithuanian Center opened in 1980, having acquired the premises of a small former church at 258 Mill Point Rd. The building was then decorated with Lithuanian symbols by a local Lithuanian DP priest, Alfonsas Savickis. A traditional wooden cross was erected in the yard, a small monument for Lithuanian volunteers built beside the Lithuanian Center, and the top of the Lithuanian Center façade was adorned by the Lithuanian coat of arms, while the roof was crowned by an artwork that combined Lithuanian patriotic symbols of the Columns of Gediminas, Cross of Vytis, and the national flag. The Center was used for monthly Lithuanian dinners as well as rehearsals of the "Baltija" Lithuanian dance group, popular among the Perth Lithuanian youth of the 1970s-1980s. These young people were typically either born in Australia to Lithuanian families, or born in the post-WW2 DP (refugee) camps in Western Europe and brought to Australia in their very early childhood.

Lithuanian signs on the Perth Lithuanian Center (photo taken while the building still was in Lithuanian use)

However, the Lithuanian Center activities dwindled as very few in the grandchildren-of-the-immigrants generation have joined them. That is because, with so few Lithuanians spread out across Perth, nearly all the marriages were interethnic, and the offspring of such families are unlikely to join Lithuanian activities.

Interior of the Perth Lithuanian Center when it was still open

As such, with only a few activists remaining, the Lithuanian Center closed its doors and was sold in 2013. 970 000 dollars were returned to the original funders, and 10 000 allocated for community expenses. The façade was completely reconstructed as the building now serves as headquarters for a business; no visible signs of the building's Lithuanian history remain.

Current façade of the former Perth Lithuanian Center

Besides the Lithuanian Center, Lithuanian activities used to take place in the parishes where Lithuanian Mass was celebrated. In line with the Australian diocesan policies, there was never a Lithuanian ethnic parish in Perth, and the location of where the Lithuanian Mass was held changed with time and priests celebrating such Mass. Initially, St. Brigid Church was used, while the last church to host Lithuanian Masses was Saint Francis Xavier.

Saint Francis Xavier Church with no visible Lithuanian signs

Prior to the opening of the Lithuanian Center, in addition to parish halls, Lithuanian events used to take place in various rented premises. The heavy burden of carrying the necessary materials from one venue to another was among the reasons to establish the Lithuanian Center as a permanent Lithuanian hub in Western Australia.

There were attempts to establish a Lithuanian school in 1969; however, it folded in 1972 as it failed to attract enough children to receive funding (a new school was established later by the 21st-century immigrants). Since 1975, a Lithuanian newspaper Žinutė (the Message) was published, but the publication ceased in 1999. The Lithuanian radio transmissions became English in 1995.

Fremantle Port and its Welcome Walls

Port of Fremantle is the closest large Australian port to Europe and, as such, it served as the entry point to many Lithuanian immigrants of the 1947-1953 era. Western Australia Lithuanians were not the only ones who disembarked here – it was common for the long-distance ships to disembark their passengers in Fremantle and then turn back to Europe for another lucrative passage, while eastern-Australia-bound immigrants would then transfer into another ship from Fremantle to Melbourne or Sydney.

Those immigrants whose descendants paid for the opportunity are now commemorated on the Welcome Walls next to the Western Australia Maritime Museum. There, their names and surnames, as well as the names of the ships they came with, are recorded - however, the national origins or ethnicities are not mentioned. Still, often it is possible to recognize Lithuanians based on their names and surnames, although their numbers are few compared to those of the larger post-WW2 refugee groups (Poles, Latvians) and even more massive groups of later southern European economic migrants (Greeks, Italians).

Some of the names on the Fremantle Walls, including ones of Lithuanian immigrants (e.g. Klimaitis family)

Mount Truchanas in northern Western Australia

An 1150-meters-tall mountain near Tom Price town is named Mount Truchanas after Olegas Truchanas, a Šiauliai-born Lithuanian photographer and environmentalist. Olegas Truchanas is considered to have been instrumental to the Australian environmentalist movement, as his images of pristine Tasmanian landscapes have attracted wide attention to how humans affect nature.

Mount Truchanas marked on the Google Maps