THE SECOND COMING OF LITTLE PEBBLE

Nowra is an idyllic town nestled among the flourishing waratahs and majestic gums of the NSW south coast. But just a few kilometres away lies an unsignposted dirt road that leads to a dark and desolate place. Huge steel gates guard the entrance to a compound, its perimeter cordoned off by barbed wire fences. Though anyone happening by would wonder why so much trouble has been taken to protect this patch of land – a desiccated dust bowl strewn with a few derelict caravans.

For more than a decade, the followers of a man named William Kamm lived here while they awaited the end of the world. Food and warm clothes were stockpiled. Every six months they taped black plastic over their windows, fearing the sight of devils walking across the fiery earth would instantly kill them. They worked to earn money for Kamm, a self-proclaimed prophet who went by the name Little Pebble. In the 1990s and 2000s, he presided over 180 faithful here in Nowra and many more at sites around the world. He’d convinced his followers they would be the sole survivors when a comet wiped humanity from the earth.

But while the members of his ‘Order of Saint Charbel’ were working and praying, Little Pebble was using his influence in opportunistic and predatory ways. One of his prophesies was that he would repopulate the earth by procreating with 12 “queens” and 72 “princesses” plucked from among his acolytes, and he was true to his word.

In 2005, he was locked up for sex crimes against underage girls. After that, many of his followers drifted away, but roughly 27 people remain at the run-down site near Nowra