The 2025 Week 1 Restoration Works

What a great start to the 2025 season, with plenty of work going on around the site and lots of visitors enjoying their time at Farina.

We sometimes feel like we’re on a treasure hunt, and this first photo shows Greg removing the built up sand that had accumulated around the old Water Standpipe just to the north of the Exchange Hotel on North Terrace. Residents of Farina would come here with tanks, usually mounted on a cart fetch water.

We love to see the happy faces of the visitors to Farina, and Leonie captured photos of some of the visitors in week 1.

The centre of operations during the program is of course the Underground Oven and Patterson’s House. Here’s a collection of photos of the volunteers around Patterson’s.
This weeks Stonework focus has been the Post Office, with the team led by stonemason Peter Russell.
 
Peter identified sections of stone in the lowest section of each wall which had been hollowed out due to the effects of wind and salt causing the lime mortar to erode. If left untouched then these walls would likely collapse.
 
This weeks “Stonies” team were , left to right Peter Russell, Owen, Jen, Maria, Sam, Hugh and Norm. Not in photo were Meg, Deb and Steve who mixed the mortar.
The was much kneeling, squatting and sitting for this low work, but plenty of laughs and talking with visitors curious about the work going on.

To improve the area around the back door into the Bakery kitchen it was decided to build a lean-too roof. This will protect the cooling racks and provide shelter for the bakers going in ad out the door. Gerry and Ian set to building the framework and were aided by other volunteers to paint the timber.

On the same theme as the new shelter roof, Gerry Neyenhuis has done a fantastic job building and installing some new cupboards at Patterson’s House. They will be used by the bakery staff for coat storage and also for storing extra drinks and non-perishables.

The major event of Week 1 was the completion of the Goods Shed. In week 0 the builder set out and laid the footings, and they came back in Week 1 and took just three days to put the shed up. Work also started in preparing NSU62 for painting, so once it’s painted it can be rolled back into the shed and be protected from the elements.
It takes a lot of work by our Volunteers to run the annual program at Farina, and behind the scenes we have our unsung heroes. This week we had Ned and Owen as the “Essential Services” team, who spend their days refuelling generators, cleaning the showers and toilets, restocking firewood for the Underground Oven and making sure the Public Toilets are always working.
 
Down in Tom’s shed, Ernie our merchandise coordinator was working on some insulators and other merchandise items.
 
Now to ensure that all the parts work together, we have John and Jenny (see picture of John) who are our co-ordinators for week 1 and 2 of the program. They assign the roles, ensure all the supplies are arranged, and deal with a thousand and one issues as they arise.