The Bondi caveman

WHEN JHIYMY Mhiyles arrived in Sydney homeless and broke during the 2000 Olympic Games, he decided he liked Bondi beach so much that he set up camp on the cliffs overlooking the famous stretch of sand.­

He's stayed there ever since, enjoying million-dollar views from a surfside squat made of tarpaulins and rope, confounding official efforts to move him on and defying louts who occasionally trash his ramshackle hideaway.­

Dubbed 'the Bondi caveman' because of his wild beard and his camp's location on a coastal rock ledge, Mhiyles says he has nowhere else to go and simply wants to be left alone to write poetry and feed sea birds.­ "The only place left for me after this is over there," he said, pointing to the waves lapping the shore at the bottom of the cliff.­

The presence of the eccentric Mhiyles rankles some residents in Bondi, once a rough-and-tumble, working-class suburb that has been gentrified in recent decades so that ocean-front homes fetch millions of dollars.­ The local council tried to evict him earlier this year after a series of complaints from residents, but backed down when publicity about his plight sparked widespread criticism.­

An online petition attracted hundreds of signatures supporting the squatter.­ 'Good on you Jimmy, too many bloody rules and rule makers,' wrote one supporter called Brendan Brady, while another named Scott said: 'I have to support you, mystical caveman! You're living my dream-life in my dream-house.'

Mhiyles has little time for such romantic notions about his situation.­ "A lot of people say, you've got it good here, you're not paying any rent," he said, sitting on a sun-bleached chair shaped like a hand, a discard from one of the designer-furnished residences that now dominate Bondi's waterfront.­

"Anyone who thinks it's easy, I'd say come and spend a winter with me. It gets bloody cold here on the rocks.­ "It's not an alternative lifestyle, I just haven't got anywhere else to go."

Mhiyles, however, does see himself as a poet, a modern-day version of Australian bush balladeers such as Henry Lawson and Banjo Paterson.­ "You'll never get fat being a poet," he says, pulling up his over-sized Hawaiian shirt to reveal a wiry torso with prominent ribs.­ "But it's what I do. I'm the digger of doggerel, the nong (idiot) of nuance." He calls William Shakespeare 'The Boss' and talks passionately about the inspiration he finds in his unique setting.­

Among the bric-a-brac strewn about his camp is a pirate flag flying defiantly on a pole as a symbol that he is not planning on going anywhere.­ Mhiyles occasionally performs readings at local pubs and clubs, as well as reciting his work for some of the thousands of tourists who pass his clifftop hideaway every day.