After a job that's never boring? Come to the tiny town of Wanaaring

Updated December 22, 2017 07:02:23

It is a sea change, of sorts.

There is just one problem: The nearest beach is about 1,000 kilometres away.

Welcome to Wanaaring, outback New South Wales – the tiny town with a big job for the right person.

"It's more of a tree change, or dust change to be honest," said Ben Strong, who owns the town's only shop with his wife, Margaret.

"There's nothing you couldn't sell in this shop, you're so far from everything else, people don't really have a choice."

Mr Strong is not exaggerating. About 80 people call Wanaaring home, with a couple of hundred more spread out on properties in the area, which is known for cattle, sheep and goat farming.

The nearest town, Bourke, is almost 200km away on a dirt road. The heaving metropolis of Sydney is 1,000km in the distance.

After 13 years in the outback hamlet, the Strongs and their eight-year-old daughter Ashlee are packing up and heading back to Queensland.

And that means the Wanaaring Store and Caravan Park, which dates to 1885, is going on the market next week.

"If you're trying to escape the rat race, that's what we did," Mr Strong said.

"You do better in this business than what you do in a lot of businesses in civilisation – you've got a pretty captive audience.

"You have to do everything, but it's done well for us, it's set us up.

"If you did just one thing it might not be worthwhile, but the more little things you do it adds up to a good business."

And the Strongs do a lot of little things.

Car oils and motorbike tyres sit alongside groceries in their shop.

After sorting food and fuel for locals and people passing through, there is the mail run – a 350km round trip twice a week exclusively on unsealed roads.

They are also the town's official meteorologists.

"We do all the weather reads and then put them into the Bureau of Meteorology laptop and get all the data sent through at about 9.00am each day," Mr Strong said.

'44 degrees is quite pleasant'

Founded in the 1880s, Wanaaring once had a population of about 3,000 and was central to the area's wool trade.

While the town's heyday is long gone, Mr Strong jokes Wanaaring, which has a police station, primary school and medical centre with a doctor that flies in once a fortnight, boasts better services than his previous home of Cairns.

"We had a charity car rally come through here last month, and I think we went through about 12,000 litres of unleaded," he said.

"I was standing at the bowser for about seven hours filling people up I think but that's what you do.

"Just someone that wants to do something for themselves. You need a bit of get-up and go."

Then there's the weather.

On Monday, the mercury soared past 45 degrees Celsius.

"People just carry on and you just get out in it," Mr Strong said.

"It's only if you spend half the day in aircon, and walk outside you get a bit of a shock – honestly 44 degrees out here is quite pleasant."

The peace of knowing there's no one for miles

If Mr Strong has one regret in 13 years, it is that his recently completed accommodation in the nearby camp ground was not built sooner.

The construction doubled the number of hotel rooms in the town from three, to six.

It is the mail run, and its opportunities to spot wildlife, Mr Strong will miss most.

Among the camels, brumbies, brown snakes, echidnas and "hundreds of bloody emus", he spotted something unusual the other day.

"I saw a rare, white kangaroo which was amazing," Mr Strong said.

"I knew it lived around there somewhere. Seeing things like that and just the peacefulness of it all is why I love that mail run.

"There's nothing better than just going out in the car, pulling up somewhere and turning the motor off and just sitting there and knowing there's no one for miles."

Topics: human-interest, offbeat, wanaaring-2840

First posted December 22, 2017 06:20:57

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