Boom or bust? A dispatch from my home in the Hunter

Our local cinema has been shuttered for decades. Our long-term bank closed its doors – and its ATM – ages ago. But there are signs of life.

Phillip Adams on his property 'Elmswood' just outside Gundy, in the northern Hunter Valley, NSW, in 2018. Picture: James Croucher

I’m tapping out my weekly words at Elmswood, the 10,000-acre property (we in the bush still prefer that mode of measurement to new-fangled hectares) that’s been our home for the past 40 years. It produces, among other things, beef, lamb, wool, honey, olives, olive oil, soap and Patrice’s beloved garlic. All 100 per cent organic.

Keep going upstream and you pass Belltrees, historic home of the White dynasty (including Patrick). Then comes the Packer fiefdom, Ellerston. Then comes the majestic Barrington Tops National Park. Three clicks to our left? Our tiny, blink-and-you’ll-miss-it hometown of Gundy, population around 200. One pub, one church, a cemetery and the little Gundy General Store. Head on another 17km, after driving between famous studs, and you arrive at Scone, which proudly proclaims itself to be the “horse capital of Australia”. There’s a statue of a mare and foal – and the names of famous racehorses on plaques embedded in the footpath. Like those of movie stars in Hollywood.

Is the area growing or dying? I remember a picture-perfect train station with a station master who proudly tended flower beds. But for decades it has been un-manned – trembling to the endless coal trains that thunder to and from the vast coal mines of the Hunter Valley. Catching the occasional passenger train to Sydney, 300km away, is now a lonely business.

Retailing is dominated by, surprise surprise, the duopoly of Coles and Woolies, and we have our share of empty shops in the main drag as a consequence. Little hope of them being leased again. The Scone cinema has been shuttered for decades. And our long-term bank closed its doors – and its ATM – ages ago. Its building is now occupied by another real estate agency. Seems you can’t have too many of those.

Every Saturday morning I drive to the Scone Newsagency to pick up old-fashioned printed-on-paper newspapers, and also collect the weekly orders for a couple of neighbours. This remarkably large store is effectively our town’s centre. But I suspect its main business is selling lottery thingos.

Almost forgot. Three cheers for the public libraries of Australia – we have a decent one. And another three for the small, valiant Scott Memorial Hospital, which I’ve got to know all too well following my most recent health scare, involving being mauled by a dog.

Dying? Growing? Coming? Going? In one of the few hopeful signs for the district, business seems to be booming in the hospital’s maternity wing. At the local supermarkets it seems prams and pushers outnumber trollies.

From atop Black Mountain in the middle of the farm you can see smoke rising from the power stations that Neville Wran had built beside the coal mines. Peta Dutton (as I like to call him) promised to replace them with a you-beaut nuclear power plant. You can imagine our delight and excitement! Then, sadly, we had a couple of earthquakes in rapid succession. Back to the drawing board. We await the LNP’s Plan B. Meanwhile Elmswood keeps adding to its population of solar panels.

Other news? Having retired from the ABC (after 33 years of a weekly 600km commute) I am now a full-time farm labourer – and it’s time to muster our Shropshire sheep. Lots of spring lambs. See yers later.