Man restores mate's dream pub after tragic death
Kevin "Stumpy" Darmody ran the Peninsula Hotel in the Cape York town of Laura, Cairns for over 20 years before he was tragically killed by a crocodile during a fishing trip.
The 65-year-old went missing on the Kennedy River at Rinyirru National Park in April last year, with his body recovered a month later, after wildlife officers shot and killed a crocodile during their search, discovering his remains in its stomach.
Now, Darmody's best friend Stuart Wiggins has picked up where he left off, and travelled all the way to Cairns from Canberra to restore his mate's pub.
"I've been coming up for 20 years myself and watched all the hard work Kev's put in and I thought I didn't want to see that get wasted," he told the ABC.
He got to work and trimmed the three-metre long weeds that covered the pub.
"The weeds were like trees. We've worked from day to night and it's looking really good now."
Wiggins recalled how his best mate first moved to Laura, Cairns 20 years ago after he came across the town on a 4WD trip across northern Australia.
Now, in honour of his late friend, Wiggins has renamed the hotel "Stumpy's Bar".
"I've got a nice big sign out the front of the pub to remember him," Wiggins said.
He also reminisced their friendship and how the pair "got on like a house on fire", saying that he too had "fished off the same spot" where Darmody was taken "so many times".
"He was always warning people going out there, 'don't get too close to the water. If you fall in you're not going to get out,' so what happened that day we'll never ever know", he said.
Wiggins shared that Darmody was known to for his tough exterior, but was the type of person that would "give you the shirt off his back and do anything for you".
"Even the week before he passed, he bought a plane ticket to sneak down to surprise me for my 60th birthday," he said.
Prior to Darmody's death Wiggins was working a "cruisy job" at Parliament House in Canberra, before deciding to leave his family behind to re-enter the hospitality industry.
"It was a massive move to leave my family behind but even my lady Tanya knew it was something I needed to do," Wiggins said.
"I couldn't just sit at parliament thinking the place was going to go to rack and ruin."
Images: ABC/ Stuart Wiggins