The 2025 Week 7 Restoration Works

This week saw the start of school holidays and the busiest period of the work program. The first weekend was busy however as the week progressed we saw more and more holiday traffic, including many busloads of tourists coming up to see Lake Eyre. Kerry and Tamara and the whole team in the Bakery did a fine job and put in huge hours to keep all our visitors supplied with the bakery food they love.

Here’s a few photos from the Bakery, although the photo of the serving counter shows it nearly empty, this was quite unusual as for most of the time there was a queue and at times the queue went out the door.

Early in the week a team of volunteers led by Kevin spent the day out near Lyndhurst Siding collecting old railway sleepers to be used as firewood for the Donkey’s. Three truck loads of sleepers were brought in even after having to make a temporary repair to the forks on the loader after they broke. Thanks to Alan White the next day the forks were repaired and stronger than ever, ready to be used to unload supplies.

A big event this week was the delivery of the memorial silhouette and information stand for Mounted Constable Spicer, who was tragically killed in an accident at Farina in June 1884. John White and Max Slee from the South Australian Police Historical Society drove up to Farina to deliver the memorial and talk to Bill Brock and Mark Roberts about the installation at the Old Police Station, and the dedication and unveiling ceremony to be held in next years work program. To keep up the suspense, the image of the silhouette has been blurred out for now. After the delivery the team set to work digging the required holes and concreting the footings ready for next years installation.

A huge effort has been put into the Farina Post Office this year and in week 7 the team were putting on the finishing touches before moving over the the Police Station.

Some of the stonework team moved over the the Old Police Station early in the week before the remainder move over at the start of week 8. At the start of week 7 the team all got involved to clean up around the Police station and then enlisted Kevin to help move rock out of the way with his loader. The Old Police Station hasn’t has any work done on it for a while so with the upcoming MC Spicer memorial to be installed, the team set to work to undertake repairs to the back wall and to cap the highest part of the easter wall.

To cap off the week for the outdoors team, there was an expedition to a far flung part of the station to collect old fallen down Mulga fence posts to be used as fuel for the Underground Oven. Four vehicles and three trailers went on the trip and brought back big loads of timber.

Earlier in the season the windmill from Well No 2 was taken up to Toms Shed and repaired to enable it to be put back and on display at Well 2. This week the team were prepping it and painting it, and footings dug and formed up ready for concreting.