Bakery at Farina

Submitted: Saturday, Jun 20, 2026 at 13:19
ThreadID: 152812 Views:725 Replies:6 FollowUps:11
Interesting ABC article on the underground bakery at Farina SA (Click here) Very worth visiting Farina.
It has memories for me as my father was a Master Baker who single handedly produced daily bread in a wood-fired oven for many years until he hung up his baker's peel and concentrated on pastries and cakes. In those early days he mixed dough in a 'trough' by hand and managed the stoking and temperature of the oven while at the same time loading and unloading it using a wooden peel.
These occaisional bakers at Farina are doing much the same although I think they now have an electric mixer.
Anyone considering their life as being tough should try that for a living!
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Allan

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Reply By: Member - Jim S1 - Saturday, Jun 20, 2026 at 15:09

Saturday, Jun 20, 2026 at 15:09
Great underground oven , good pies , and when we were there , cream buns with real cream !!

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Jim
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Reply By: Stephen L (Clare) SA - Saturday, Jun 20, 2026 at 16:17

Saturday, Jun 20, 2026 at 16:17
Unfortunately you can not get in it out of Farina at the moment……roads are close from you know what……rain, rain and more rain
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Follow Up By: Peter_n_Margaret - Monday, Jun 22, 2026 at 14:09

Monday, Jun 22, 2026 at 14:09
Road to and from Farina to the bitumen is OPEN.
Outback SA roads.
" Mulgaria Rd - Farina to Mulgaria via Witchelina
Close from Farina to Mulgaria. Road is wet, severe scouring, and debris in creek crossings. Next update 22/6/26. Note: the road is open from the bitumen to Farina."
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Peter
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Follow Up By: Stephen L (Clare) SA - Monday, Jun 22, 2026 at 14:48

Monday, Jun 22, 2026 at 14:48
Yes but was closed to everyone on Saturday.
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Follow Up By: Peter_n_Margaret - Monday, Jun 22, 2026 at 16:26

Monday, Jun 22, 2026 at 16:26
Yes and its open now.
That site is updated whenever things change, as you well know.
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Peter
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Reply By: Member - nick boab - Saturday, Jun 20, 2026 at 20:55

Saturday, Jun 20, 2026 at 20:55
Farina station sold earlier this month but apparently the bakery/town is not a part of the sale although the camping area is apart of the station,
maybe someone has some more information on this ??
Don't know how accurate all this is ..

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Follow Up By: Member - shane r1 - Sunday, Jun 21, 2026 at 09:17

Sunday, Jun 21, 2026 at 09:17
Yes , I’m pretty sure that’s correct
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Follow Up By: Member - nick boab - Sunday, Jun 21, 2026 at 11:06

Sunday, Jun 21, 2026 at 11:06
Farina station
I think the camping has always been the stations enterprise along with other attractions nearby, so nothing will most likely be different with the new owners

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Reply By: Member - Warren H - Sunday, Jun 21, 2026 at 10:40

Sunday, Jun 21, 2026 at 10:40
My father started an apprenticeship in 1930 at 13yo. Two bag doughs, at 40lb a bag mixed by hand in a trough. He was only a little bloke at 5' 2 1/2" but boy did he have some shoulders. A hard job, nothing like standing in front of the oven in a FNQ summer peeling the bread tins. He rode his bike down to the ice-works to bring back a block of ice wrapped in hessian between the handle bars (the ice was used to adjust the water temperature). He wasn't a fan of wood fired ovens, replacing the firebox with a fuel oil / compressed air burner, and a thermometer. You haven't seen prickly-heat until you've seen the arms of a Baker in the tropics.
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Follow Up By: Allan B (Sunshine Coast) - Sunday, Jun 21, 2026 at 11:22

Sunday, Jun 21, 2026 at 11:22
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Hi Warren,
Appears that we are 'brothers' in a manner of speaking. And I take it that you, as I, did not follow our fathers' profession.
I can remember at end of my schooling that my father said to me…. "I'm sure that you want to be an electrician, but you can choose to be anything you wish ……… except a baker."
Nevertheless, he was proud and respected in his profession. And I still have not found any meat pies as good as his!
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Allan

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Follow Up By: Member - Warren H - Sunday, Jun 21, 2026 at 18:11

Sunday, Jun 21, 2026 at 18:11
His advice to me was identical. My uncle was also a baker, his son took up the trade for a few years but ended up a fettler, make what you will of the comparative difficulty, certainly the air would have been fresher and the hours better.
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Follow Up By: Member - McLaren3030 - Monday, Jun 22, 2026 at 08:12

Monday, Jun 22, 2026 at 08:12
I left school at the age of 15 1/2 and went into a Pastrycook apprenticeship. 150 lbs (68 kgs) bags of flour, 112 lbs (51 kgs) bags of salt, 70 lbs (32 kgs) bags of sugar, 20 lbs (9 kgs) boxes of margarine . I was barely 5’ tall (152.4 cm), and weighed around 7 stone, (98 lbs). After 12 months, I was 5’4” tall (164.6 cm), and weighed around 9 stone (126 kgs). This was in the late 1960’s, and whilst we used machines to mix our dough, all the ingredients had to be carried by hand. Bags of salt were the worst to carry, as due to the moisture in the air, it became an almost solid mass, and was difficult to get a grip on the bag. After 4 years I had completed my apprenticeship, but not long after, and due to specific circumstances, I left the trade.

Whilst these days, modern large bakeries use bulk ingredients and a lot of automation, the small bakery/cake shop, still do a lot of things by hand.

Macca.
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Follow Up By: Allan B (Sunshine Coast) - Monday, Jun 22, 2026 at 09:43

Monday, Jun 22, 2026 at 09:43
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Hi Macca, I think we may all be outclassed as weightlifters by this tale…………….

During my electrical apprenticeship I was attending to the breakdown of the bagged flour elevator at a major bread bakery. All the bakers had gone home when a laden truck arrived with the flour delivery. The small maintenance crew including myself were called upon to carry the 112 lb bags of flour up the stairs to the dough room. The truck driver, a real skinny bloke, repeatedly heaved a bag onto each shoulder and scaled the stairs at a pace. I was near exhaustion after a couple of 1 bag circuits.
I made sure that I completed the elevator repair before the next delivery.

As an aside and with EV transport in mind, in the 1950's this bakery used some electric delivery vehicles as well as horse-drawn carts. They were of English origin, used lead-acid batteries and originally used in London for milk delivery. Frequently some of these EV's could not make it home and needed to be rescued by a petrol powered truck. Maybe this is where my EV range anxiety comes from?

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Allan

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Follow Up By: Member - McLaren3030 - Tuesday, Jun 23, 2026 at 08:47

Tuesday, Jun 23, 2026 at 08:47
Yes Allan, we had a similar experience at the bakery when the road out the front of our delivery entrance was being repaired. Whilst we did not have any Flour deliveries, we did have a delivery of sugar. All of us apprentices were tasked with assisting to carry the 70 lbs bags of sugar from around the corner approx 100 meters. I managed two bags, one on each shoulder for a couple of trips, but reverted back to one bag after two trips. From memory, I think it was 40 bags each delivery, with three apprentices and the delivery driver, it didn’t take too long to get the truck unloaded. This was back in the late 60’s.

Macca.
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Reply By: Member - Mark (Tamworth NSW) - Tuesday, Jun 23, 2026 at 11:32

Tuesday, Jun 23, 2026 at 11:32
You guys need to familiarise yourselves with wheat bags, 3 bushels = 180lb or 82kg. Then think about the wheat lumpers building those wheat stocks before the days of bulk grain .
As a teenager I lumped those bags occasionally but fortunately never carrying up stairs.
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Follow Up By: Bricky - Wednesday, Jun 24, 2026 at 06:42

Wednesday, Jun 24, 2026 at 06:42
As a teen I worked in a Frankston grain store. As you say wheat 3 bushels, other grains varied. I remember the dun peas that came in weren't weighed so we would weigh them and write the weight on the bag. They were up to about 195lb.
We had no fork lift so would unload the semi by hand and make 2 X 2 stacks 24 bags high. Go as high as you can then make step wit bags till we reached the height.
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Reply By: Zippo - Wednesday, Jun 24, 2026 at 17:31

Wednesday, Jun 24, 2026 at 17:31
When we went through there a couple or three years back, they were not able to actually cook in the underground facility due to SA Govco bureaucracy - Health regs we were told - and that the chances of the bureaucrats ever allowing it was slim.

Does the ABC piece indicate that common sense has prevailed?
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