The 2025 Week 8 Restoration Works
This week was the second week of the school holidays, and being coupled with the people coming up to see Lake Eyre, was a very busy week. The camping ground was humming every night and towards the last weekend was very nearly full.
Lots of wonderful visitors dropped by to look around Farina, talk to the volunteers about what they’re doing and of course visit the bakery. One group of friends bought a heavy fruit loaf freshly out of the oven and devoured it while they were standing around at Patterson’s House.
Due to the weekend between weeks 7 and 8 being very busy, the Bakery were running low on a number of backing supplies. So a special night time run to Leigh Creek to meet with Spog was arranged. Mark, Michael, Colin and Tanya took both Farina ute’s with the cold trailer and a box trailer to pick up the nearly 1 ton of supplies straight from Spogs truck. It’s not usual to travel at night to extra time was allowed to travel slowly and luckily all wildlife was avoided. Once back at Farina, Bill had arranged another crew of volunteers to unload and sort the delivery and take supplies up to the bakery to be ready for the bakers at 3am. Here’s a couple of photos taken on the road.
The stonework crew were working really hard at the Old Police Station and it’s now looking great. After the cleanup around it, tidying the old car and then the great stonework it has undergone a transformation this season.
Many of you will have seen the old rusty vehicle at the Old Police Station, and once the excess rock and sand had been moved the the stonework team patched up the walls, the vehicle needed some work. So Mark and Colin set too with shovels and a crowbar and removed all the sand in which it was half buried, and then lifted it off the ground onto some solid rocks to stop it rusting too fast. While working on it some visitors identified it as a 1928 Dodge, although we’re not sure if this is yet to be verified and at time we’re not sure of its history.
The outdoor crew were ticking off several jobs on the works list in the rundown to the end of the program. Mid week saw Jane, Dulcie, Colin, Michael and Mark cleaning up and painting the wooden crosses at the cemetery. We had several visitors comment on how good they look now. Then Colin, Michael and Mark fitted flashing to the connection of the lean to at Tom’s shed, and then travelled down to the railway precinct to put a fresh coat of grey paint on the W Class flatbed wagon.
Another highlight of the week was the installation of the newly preserved windmill at Well 2. Earlier in the program the guys recovered the windmill from where it had fallen and then carefully put it back together and fabricated the missing or broken parts. Early this week the footings were laid out, holes dug, formwork constructed and concrete poured. Then on Friday afternoon all the parts were taken back down to Well 2, reassembled and then with the aid of Kevin’s loader fitted with lifting jib, carefully lifted into place and bolted down. As the windmill bearings are all worn/non-existent, the tail has been chained to the blades to prevent it turning and to keep the blades out of the wind. It will still turn on its vertical axis, so we should still see movement when the wind direction changes.
It’s amazing how Farina brings out everyone’s talents, and Diane Paine took a break to relax and paint a wonderful picture of the Transcontinental Hotel
Now here’s a mystery. Volunteer Annette and husband Les were up at the cemetery having a look around and spied what they believe to be some wheat plants. So was wheat every grown at Farina, maybe this is the first evidence.