Farina from Gibbers to Ghost Town

Description

Farina was founded in the 1870’s on an outback South Australian gibber plan as the rail head for the towns that were to grow wheat well beyond Goyder’s Line.  It boomed in the years between 1882 and 1884 and then began the long years of languid decline.  There grew a cosmopolitan population of Aborigines, Chinese, Europeans and Afghans.  There were those upon whom the town was centered….the station master, the storekeeper, the hotelier, the pastoralist and the post master and a whole range of ‘outsiders’ and transients.  There are colourful tales of Gool Mahomet who brought a Frenchwoman by camel from Kalgoorlie to raise their family; letters from a homesick school teacher describing life in the post World War One town; and insights into the wonderful sense of community demonstrated in dances, races and sporting events.  Throughout the life of the town, the struggle with the elements is recurring theme as the town’s umbilical link with ‘civilisation’.  The narrow gauge railway, is often tenuous and unreliable.

After the Second World War, the town dies slowly…..Railwaymen are transferred, the school and Post Office close, the Anglican church is demolished and the roof of the store is destroyed in a windstorm.  Yet the many residents who left the town for Southern greenery and the sea breeze, remember fondly Farina days and their voices are faithfully recorded in this volume.

Farina now has a group (Farina Restoration Group) for securing and restoring the old buildings and each year start the underground bakery and sell bread and pies etc to the travellers passing by north and south.

Lyndhurst people going to Farina Races about 1930.