At the Bakery

The fire at the front is lit for Pizza Night on Sundays. Ben, the baker, sits with his sister Naomi, who is visiting.

To backtrack a little ... during the first week I was checking out work opportunities — the school was looking for a part-time administration assistant (but the teacher was out of town), there was rumour of work at the Information Centre, and Blue the Plumber was looking for a new offsider for three weeks to drive the backhoe. "How hard is it to drive a backhoe?" said I. Not hard at all, Blue assured me, but I wasn't convinced, especially when I found out what a backhoe looked like. I'd offered my services to Dusty, the owner of the bakery, every time we'd been in for coffee as well, and he finally said he could do with some help in the van at the Bronco Branding, where I got a swift lesson in pie floaters and hot chips. I must have done alright, because he said would I like to help out in the Bakery the next morning, since there were so many extra people in town for the Branding, whereupon I got another swift lesson in making cappucinos.

By lunchtime I was a dab hand at the coffee machine, had sold a lot of pies and bread, and washed up a a pile of dishes. I have been in regularly ever since, and now can make pizzas for the Sunday evening Pizza Night, cook hot breakfasts (bacon, eggs & tomato melange, savoury mince, lambs fry and eggs on toast) and a myriad other things it takes to keep a bakery working, such as restocking the fridges and sweeping up the constant red dust. Its a very long way from sitting behind a computer laying out magazines, and surprisingly physical — I was ready for bed by about 8.30 pm the first week or so, but I'm getting used to it now.

Ben the Baker gets in at 4 am to make the bread fresh for the mornings, and does most of the pie making as well, although Dusty cooks the fillings. The pie menu includes Kangaroo and Claret, Curried Camel, Butter Chicken, Chunky Beef and Mince pies, plus pasties and sausage rolls. Teresa, his partner, has the pie warmer stocked by 8 am, and makes the sweet things, like quandong tarts, fingerbuns, and a delicious lemon slice, and Ben makes a very good Lamington.

The thing I like most about helping out at the Bakery is the chance I get to meet the locals who stop in for coffee and a feed, as well as all the people passing through on their travels. Without exception, they're very nice people, and are always happy to tell you where they're coming from and where they're off to, and as much about their travels as you've time to listen to. And then there are the regulars, the builders who are working on the new Information Centre (young blokes who consume enormous quantities of pies and sausage rolls), contractors who are in town for a job, station hands, and pilots who are doing regular runs.

Teresa and Dusty, who owns the Birdsville Bakery.


Locals nurses, Bev and Ross, from the Birdsville Clinic, are regulars.


Inside the Bakery. Rusty has built it to look like a tin shed, which it pretty well is, albeit a well fitted-out and air conditioned one. It has an old windmill as a centrepiece, with its blades decorated by local aboriginal artist, Fiona.


Michelle, the cappucino queen.


Dusty's pride and joy, his Sturt's Desert Peas.


And his wheel rim collection.