Along Oak Street: the neighbours we'd miss
A house is only as good as its street. Here is a slow lap of Oak Street, with a few of the neighbours we'd be lost without.
A slow lap of the street
Start at the railway station, where the platform clock is always a minute fast and the stationmaster knows the arrival time of every train by heart. A few minutes' walk takes you past the tree memorial, where visitors stop to read the plaques and locals stop to say they've seen it all before. Then the shopfronts begin, and the street becomes a conversation.
We share a wall with a baker who starts work well before dawn. The smell of the first loaves drifts through our back door around four, which is when Trevor arrives, so the baker's bread and Trevor's soup have an understanding. A saddler's workshop two doors up still sells belts and halters, and the mix of leather and fresh bread on a cool morning is one of the town's quiet pleasures.
That's the real appeal of a street this size. Everybody has a little role, and nobody is quite sure who invented it. We have been the new arrivals for a few years now, and the street has been generous enough to let us feel as though we belong.
The people we rely on
The baker and the butcher
Our bread, our sausages and a good deal of our beef come from within a few hundred metres. The butcher knows what the kitchen is planning before the kitchen does, and sets aside the cuts for the corned silverside without being asked. That sort of familiarity can't be bought, only earned over years.
The heritage folk
Barcaldine takes its history seriously, and the volunteers who keep it alive are some of our best customers. They bring visitors by the busload, and they fill the dining room on quiet Tuesdays. Olivia, who used to guide visitors herself, is rarely allowed to forget the town's dates.
Why we mention them
It would be easy to run a house that ignored its street. We think the opposite is more fun and more honest. When a guest asks where to buy a good hat or find a mechanic, we send them next door. When we run short of cream, someone passes a tub over the fence. A street works that way when people choose to be neighbours.