IT’S often intriguing what some people do in retirement, none more so than local, Kerry Storer, who has been busy preparing for an eight-week voluntary stint at the famous Farina Underground Oven and Bakery in South Australia.

The group he is a part of is the Farina Restoration Group Inc which was formed to stabilise and restore the existing Farina town infrastructure and to display the history and “style of life” of an inland Australian township from the 1880s to the 1960s.

Every year between May and July volunteers with the Farina Restoration Group travel from all over to undertake a works program to continue the preservation including research into the buildings, people and activities of Farina.

Mr Storer’s eight-week tenure includes a great deal of baking to sell goods to assist in raising money for the group.

As head baker, he is putting his skills to good use for free and gets a great deal of satisfaction through his contribution.

“I started in about 2011,” Mr Storer said.

“I had a mate who rang up and asked if I wanted to go bake at Farina,” Mr Storer said.

“I said why not?

“I’ve been doing it every year since - I missed two years, one when I had a stint at a Birdsville bakery for three months.”

“I probably have at least a dozen bakers working under me - they come from all over - in any one day there could be two or five or six of us working between preparing and baking.

“Then we’ve got four assistants selling out front.

“All our baking is now done in Pattersons House and the baking is done in a woodfired Scotch oven.

“They rebuilt this building to cater for our needs because of how much we were doing.”

Mr Storer said there were hundreds of people that come through the little town every day.

“There’s the Big Red bash in Birdsville bringing them (customers) through - the Finke Desert Race (Alice Springs) - school holidays, the Marree Camel Cup and the regular nomads all bring people through the town which has a population usually of only two people - the station owners.”

Mr Storer said that they started out small and the baking has just grown and grown selling to tourists and local stations.

The baked goods are growing in popularity, especially the vanilla slice, lemon slice and hedgehog, four or five varieties of bread, and the cream buns with real cream.

“They can get a cappuccino as well,” Mr Storer said.

“We’ve even had people come for a day from Adelaide for a day trip - that’s 600km each way.

“I’m heading up there next week to get all set up.

“It’s like a reunion.

“They (volunteers) come in the caravans and motor homes - I take a caravan.

“There’s around 200 people plus that converge on the township over the two-month period at any one time - then there’s the tourists on top of that.

“We supply a lot of the big sheep and cattle stations around the area - they’ll have a buy up and then freeze it all.”

The historic township also featured on the ABC’s Back Roads program with Heather Ewart last year and also had Hello South Australia from Channel 9 come out and do a story on the town.

The global aim of the group’s work is to attract increasing numbers of visitors to see what is left of the town preserved, to appreciate the history and to be a very significant attraction in the north Flinders Ranges area.

Farina was a railway town and has 10 historic South Australian stone buildings, which were falling down hence the group’s motivation to return the township to its former glory. It is located within the Lake Eyre Basin, on the old alignment of the Great Northern Railway later known as the Ghan Railway, 26 kilometres north of Lyndhurst and 55kms South of Marree, near the junctions of the Birdsville, Innamincka, and Oodnadatta Tracks. The Great Northern railway (the Ghan) and a standard gauge railway used to pass through the town.

The objectives of the Farina Restoration Group include stabilising the stone buildings and to prevent further deterioration of their integrity, to restore the famous underground bakery and to bake in it for approximately eight weeks a year.

They are currently building a war memorial of significance and are restoring the cemetery to become one of the best inland cemeteries in the state.

Mr Storer said they were also planning walking trails and storyboards throughout the town to explain the history and function of the sites and to identify and celebrate early residents.

“There’s always something going on - something to work on - there’s always restoration to do with the old buildings - keeping Farina like it looked like years ago,” he said.

“There’s also a NSU diesel locomotive that they are restoring - it’ll never go - it’s a tourist attraction.”

The walking trails, information boards and camping ground are open 365 days of the year.

The Underground Oven and Bakery will be open again from May 25, until July 21, 2024, for the annual eight-week season.

“I do look forward to going back every year,” Mr Storer said.