The Real Australia

All the recipients of our newsletter will know Nick, our son, who for last couple of years has been managing this establishment and as you would have experienced has done an amazing job here.

Well, fortunate for him, unfortunate for us, he has left the hotel scene to go back to his first love. Now before we go any further here I better put into context the statement his ‘first love’ which should be the plural and which is of course Jo, Hayley and Brody!  However, behind them by a nose, is the love that Nick has for the outdoors and as such Nick is doing what he loves and has set up a contracting business where he will be contract mustering, fencing etc etc.

However they will still be living in Yaraka and occasionally wandering over to the pub to imbibe in a few coldies and catch up with everyone.

We are glad for him and especially Jo because Nick went well beyond the ‘call of duty’ and was putting in very long hours here and they will now have an opportunity for more family life together.

Both Gerry and I are very proud of  what he and Jo have accomplished here in the way that they  have trained new staff, implemented systems and kept their eye on the ball in maintaining a well run establishment and a huge thanks goes out to them.

Gerry and myself will now strive to maintain the standards they put in place!

For the majority of you who spent time here you experienced and saw the effects of our disastrous drought causing a giant dust bowl in the region.  Well, now we have a giant  ‘salad bowl’ with green as far as the eye can see intermingled with glorious carpets of wild flowers. Does it get any better? Yes it does!  As I sit here on the front veranda of the pub in my favourite plastic chair it’s raining.  At 6.30 am we tipped out 4.5ml of overnight rain and the expectations are for somewhere between 20 to 40 ml over the next 48 hours!

There has been a mass exodus of caravans leave this morning but we have some stalwarts left who are more than happy to be  ‘stranded in Yaraka’!  So as the rain falls and the clouds darken and the temperature drops it’s time to light up the fire in the Dining room and relish the rain on the roof.  Now it really doesn’t get any better than that does it?

There are some potential exciting developments bubbling away at the moment relating to Yaraka. As soon as they are official we will let you know!

Cheers from the Outer Barcoo and the real Australia!