Chris Brooks · 63 min
From Army recruit to pub custodian, Chris Brooks weathered bushfires, a pandemic, and the worst flood in 70 years to keep the heart of Wollombi beating, and never once considered giving up.
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Chris Brooks discovered Wollombi Tavern in the early 1980s on military runs, fell in love with the town's country lifestyle, and bought the pub in 2017. What followed was a cascading series of disasters: bushfires in 2019 and 2020, two COVID lockdowns, a flood in March 2022, and then the worst flood in 70 years that July. The water came up to the top of the pub doors, surpassing the 1949 flood mark by a meter. Everything floated away. The floodwater was toxic because septic tanks went under. The kitchen was coated in a slippery layer of deep-fat fryer oil. Yet Chris and the community cleaned the pub out in two weeks and reopened.
What Chris learned about Wollombi struck him deeply. The name itself means the meeting of the waters, an Aboriginal word reflecting the convergence of two creek systems that make the town a natural flood zone. The pub sits at the lowest point in town. When it burned down in the 1950s, the community rebuilt it in six weeks because it mattered that much to them. The tavern is the focal point of the village's economy and identity, and people showed up without being asked. Army recruits finishing their course climbed into overturned ice machines and removed pelicans from roofs. Volunteers came to pick rubbish off fences. His wife was hit harder by the flood than by the fires, particularly when tourists showed up in expensive cars to gawk while the community was cleaning up.
Chris is now deputy captain of the local RFS, acutely aware of the strain on volunteers who put in 12-hour shifts unpaid, often losing money while losing work. He has come to accept that records will be broken and new floods will come. Living in Wollombi means accepting this. Yet he would not leave, and neither would anyone else who loves the place. The challenge now is that property prices have climbed so high a young family trying to buy the general store would need 3.5 to 4 million dollars just to start.
“I said to my wife, I want to buy my little piece of Australia. We lived in this stupid big house in Sydney but you know really only knew the two people next door.”
“it is the focal point of you know Wollombi is a small village two hours from Sydney but a long way from anywhere.”
“I just kept carrying on that's the way I do things.”
The hero, today
Chris moved to Wollombi wanting a small piece of Australia where he could know his neighbours, and he found a place where everyone knows everyone, even when they make things up about you. The community pulled together not because the flood was survivable, but because the pub is the focal point that holds the town's identity and economy, and people moved quickly to get it reopened. Chris learned that flood mitigation built to handle the 2007 level would still go underwater in 2022, so acceptance that records will be broken is part of living here. The hardest part of the flood for Chris's wife was watching tourists pull up in expensive cars to gawk while the community was cleaning up, not the water damage itself. Chris joined the RFS as a volunteer and sees the model straining because it relies on people who can't afford to lose money taking 12-hour shifts unpaid, and the organisation keeps adding digital demands that scare away older members without phones. Chris says people don't move away from Wollombi even after floods or fires because they love the place and won't hear anyone suggest they should leave, the same way Kempsey residents won't move despite their own disaster risks.
Yes. Chris Brooks is a real person who shared their own story in their own words. Kintsugi Heroes is a not-for-profit that shares first-person stories of overcoming adversity, told with the person's consent.
Kintsugi Heroes, a registered Australian not-for-profit. Every story is shared with the hero's own consent and reviewed under Kintsugi Heroes' trauma-informed content standard before it goes public.
Chris moved to Wollombi wanting a small piece of Australia where he could know his neighbours, and he found a place where everyone knows everyone, even when they make things up about you.
The community pulled together not because the flood was survivable, but because the pub is the focal point that holds the town's identity and economy, and people moved quickly to get it reopened.
Chris learned that flood mitigation built to handle the 2007 level would still go underwater in 2022, so acceptance that records will be broken is part of living here.
John Milham (Host) · 00:00
Kintsugi Heroes brings you the following flood resilience stories in partnership with Singleton Neighbourhood Centre and grant funding from the Hunter New England and Central Coast Primary Health Network. To find out more about this podcast, head to kintsugiheroes.com.au. On July 6th, 2022, the worst flood in 70 years hit the town of Broke and the surrounding Hunter Valley region. The The community is still recovering from the trauma the floods brought, destroying their homes and their livelihoods. In this special limited series of Kintsugi Heroes, John Millum sits down with the community who suffered as a result of the floods and gives them space to share their adversity, resilience, and compassion. It's only through connection and empathy that there can be a path to recovery. These are stories of trauma and can be confronting. If you find they have a triggering effect, please reach out to someone who can help keep you safe. Join in as John takes you beyond the deluge with Kintsugi Heroes. So welcome all to another episode of Kintsugi Heroes: Beyond the Deluge, stories of the floods from the Wallumbi, Broke and surrounding area in 2022. Today, I'm really excited to talk to a member of the community that has come up often in conversation and as a focal point for the Wallaby community, who Chris Bookes. Welcome, mate.
Chris Books (Guest) · 01:41
Yeah, no, thank you. I'm pleased to be talking to you.
John Milham (Host) · 01:44
And it's so important because you were the proprietor of the Wallaby Tavern, of course, which is iconic when you think of Wallaby. Most Certainly, men of my era who ended up dropping in for a cold one more than once would associate that whole village with the tavern.
Chris Books (Guest) · 02:07
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The hardest part of the flood for Chris's wife was watching tourists pull up in expensive cars to gawk while the community was cleaning up, not the water damage itself.
This conversation includes army trips and a pub that stuck with him, five years of cascading disasters, drawing a circle around sydney, the march flood made them complacent, water a meter and a half higher than 1949 and everything floats, including full water tanks.
Yeah, it is the focal point of the— Bollamboi is a small village, 2 hours from Sydney, but a long way from anywhere. The tavern is certainly one of the major focal points for the local community and for tourists. It's probably the biggest attraction.
John Milham (Host) · 02:24
The village, probably in the area. Yeah.
Chris Books (Guest) · 02:27
Yeah. It's been fun. Well, you know, no matter where I go, if, if somehow it comes up in conversation that I, well, either I used to own or I owned the Wallanby Tavern, everyone straightaway go, oh, Dr. Dirt's Jungle Juice.
John Milham (Host) · 02:41
And again, I'm afraid I'm guilty of that too. And interesting, I do have another element to it. For 3 years in a row, my, the rugby club I was a member of were beaten in the final of the tug of war at the Singleton Picnic races. By the, by the Wallaby Woodcutter team, which trained, I think, exclusively on Dr. Jerns, right? So they were a tough group.
Chris Books (Guest) · 03:04
Well, we still have a woodshop every year at the tavern. So, I mean, it's, it's, it's run by New South Wales Axemen. It's, it's, and it's the same people you see at the Easter Show. So they're a strong group. Yeah.
John Milham (Host) · 03:16
Yeah. Amazing. And a very strong group in the, in the tug of war. I can attest to that. So, But you obviously, you came to Wallaby Tavern from, you know, on a bit of a windy journey. What, how about we start with just giving us a little bit of background about what led you to be sitting in the water as it came up above the floor in the Wallaby Tavern on, in July 2022?
Chris Books (Guest) · 03:46
Well, I was in the Army in the early '80s. And so I discovered the tavern on our way up to regular trips up to Singleton. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And we, we would drop in occasionally. And then I had a, didn't go there for a long time. And then in 2016, we decided we were looking to buy a small hobby farm and we sort of drew a circle around Sydney, 2 hours from Sydney, and, and Wallumbi happened to fall into that circle. And I happened to turn up in Wallumbi again and happened to find the property that I liked. Yeah, I bought the hobby farm and, and then, uh, talking to, well, it was my accountant, but friends of mine, and, and telling them how there's this little pub there and I love it, and if it came up for sale, I'd buy it. And I did in 2017. So, um, we had a pretty rough, it was a pretty rough trot of it really, because we had the, the bushfires of 2019 and 2020. Uh, we went into that, into a flood in 2020. There was a flood in that broke the bushfires. Yeah. Uh, we then went into a first lockdown for COVID.
John Milham (Host) · 04:52
Wow.
Chris Books (Guest) · 04:52
Uh, came back out of that, then went in the second lockdown for COVID. Then we had a flood in Mar— March in 2022, and then we had the big flood in, um, July 2022 where it came basically up to the top of the doors at the pub.
John Milham (Host) · 05:08
So, uh, obviously, um, somebody somewhere in some dimension thought you needed a bit of testing. There, because that's quite a run, my man. Just what moving into hospitality loves, right? All of those challenging situations.
Chris Books (Guest) · 05:25
Yeah, look, I'm just one of these people that doesn't particularly get upset by things that I can't control. So I just kept carrying on. That's the way I do things. I'm lucky that I wasn't relying, have another business in Sydney. Although I do live up here in Wollongong now, um, you know, I wasn't reliant on Wollongong for, um, personal income as such. And, um, you know, but I did have 12 staff and, you know, they needed to be paid and looked after. So I did look after them and I paid them even while we were shut. Um, we, we were only shut for 2 weeks after the flood. We managed to reopen after 2 weeks in a very, um, wish-washy way, but we were open. So But yeah, I'm just someone who doesn't sweat that sort of stuff, which is just as well.
John Milham (Host) · 06:19
So it's interesting. So when you moved in, obviously coming from Sydney, it's a world away. As you say, it's 2 hours but a million miles. What drew you to the area? What was the greatest, best thing about it?
Chris Books (Guest) · 06:35
Well, look, I wanted my, I used to, I said to my wife, I wanna buy my little piece of Australia, you know, we lived in Sydney, we lived in this stupid big house in Sydney. But you know, really only knew the two people next door to us and people across the road. I drew this circle and came and we looked at a number of properties, you know, from Goulburn up to around north up here, up to sort of Singleton, I suppose. And we just found the place that we liked, and it happened to be in Wallumbi. And I remembered, you know, Wallumbi from my younger adult.
John Milham (Host) · 07:10
Yeah, yeah.
Chris Books (Guest) · 07:11
And, you know, and then gradually we were absolute weekenders. We used to come up on Friday night and go back down on Sunday afternoon. And then when I bought the pub, we extended that to Mondays. We'd start— come up Friday and stay till Monday. And then after about a year of owning the pub, my wife said to me, well, why don't we just move up there permanently? And so we did. We actually sold the farm and bought a house in town. Town is a very loose word in Wallaby. It's a very small village, but we're still on about 5.5 acres here. But yeah, no, we just love the country lifestyle. In fact, We do go back to Sydney. We both got elderly parent still alive and, and her son lives in Sydney, but we hate going to the Sydney now. We, we love it up here. Yeah.
John Milham (Host) · 08:03
Yeah. And of course it's got a, you know, it starts to get into your bones, not least, right? Because when you fight for it, so, and you certainly had, you know, had to fight for it a bit there with, you know, the fires and then the floods.
Chris Books (Guest) · 08:17
Yeah. No, look, and the thing is, That was my point, I suppose, with the— you only really know your neighbors at either side of you, you know. Up here, you know everyone. Everyone knows you and you know everyone. And as my wife said, if they don't know something about you, they make it up. But that's fine. And, and that's— and, and communities like that pull together in these sorts of times, you know. During the fires, the pub was actually the focal point. We set up the RFS community engagement at the pub because everyone could get into town and see what was happening the next day and And then in the floods, everyone came down and helped us clean the pub out and get us open again. So, you know, it's a lovely place to live in. Any country town's the same, but it's a lovely place to live. Yeah.
John Milham (Host) · 08:59
Yeah. So your experience of the flood, as you said, you'd been through a bit, you know, Wallumbi was not unfamiliar with getting a bit of water, especially down by the river. So, you know, like you said, you had some water coming up in March. How did that affect your preparation for July?
Chris Books (Guest) · 09:17
Probably made us a bit lackadaisical about it, to be honest. You know, the last big flood up here before the 2022 was 2007. That was— most people remember the weekend the Pasha Bulker ran aground at Newcastle.
John Milham (Host) · 09:31
Yeah, yeah, that's right.
Chris Books (Guest) · 09:32
Yeah, well, that was that. And in that flood, it came up to about bar level, right? So in 2000, in the March flood, that came up, like I say, to probably about a meter below the floor. But that meant we lost— we had all our air conditioning units are under the floor. Yeah, a lot of our refrigeration is under the floor, so like refrigeration machinery. Um, so, you know, there was a fair bit of fixing up after that one, but it's not— it wasn't massive, it wasn't, and wasn't— didn't destroy us. We were reopened within, you know, a few hours, a few days. So, yeah. Um, and then when the— when the July flood came, um, actually one of my staff, he lives further up the creek and he's lived here all his life, so he understands exactly what happens and and he rang me and he said, this is gonna be a big one. And that was like a couple of days before. And 'cause it takes a while for the water to come down. That's the thing about floods. They're insidious. They come very slowly. You know, it's at least you can fight a fire. You can't fight a flood.
John Milham (Host) · 10:31
Yeah, I've heard that. Yeah. A lot of people have said that in some ways from two things they've offered. The first thing is you can sort of line it up and stop it almost, or at least have the sense of doing that. And the second is when it's done, it leaves much less mess behind.
Chris Books (Guest) · 10:48
Absolutely. Actually cleans itself up.
John Milham (Host) · 10:49
Yeah.
Chris Books (Guest) · 10:50
Near fire, you know. So, but yeah, so what happened was we, so he told me it was gonna be a big one. So we actually put everything up above bar level cuz we thought, you know, it'll probably, if it's gonna be bad, you know, can't be worse than 2007.
John Milham (Host) · 11:04
Wow.
Chris Books (Guest) · 11:05
Well, it was, you know, like I say, probably about a meter and a half higher than that. So it's the biggest flood since 1949. Yeah. Um, and there's a— across the road from the pub is the museum, which is the old courthouse, and, um, it's got a brass plaque on the wall where the height of the 1949 came to, and it was probably about a meter below that. Wow.
John Milham (Host) · 11:28
Well, um, and so you, you know, did some prep. How was the feeling in the town? Like, you know, like, um, You know, just another, you know, another challenge. There'd have been quite a few, everything from droughts to COVID and stuff.
Chris Books (Guest) · 11:44
I was talking, look, I knew the history of flooding in the town. I'm not quite as much as I know now. Some locals sort of tell you that it's pretty much flooded every year that they, you know, people who are born and bred here say that it pretty much floods every year. But you know, in fact, there's a saying in town, we actually like a small flood. Because small floods just sort of give us a bit of downtime, bit of quiet time, you know. So it's, it's, so you sort of, like I say, you come a little bit blasé about them. Yeah. You know, everyone who lives in this area has, you know, sort of a week's worth of food and what have you all the time, you know, cuz we just know that it's gonna happen every now and then. This one was very different. Like I literally live a kilometer from the pub., and I would've had to put a boat in the water 3 times to get to it. So put it in, get it out, put it in, get it. And, and I was told, many years ago when I first bought up here, you know, you told about how it floods and, and then, they actually, at one point they proposed to build a dam here and dam the valley. So they only build dams where there's a lot of water.
John Milham (Host) · 12:54
Yeah. Yeah.
Chris Books (Guest) · 12:55
Yeah. You know, it's sort of something you just gotta be prepared for. So, um, you know, my house is high and dry. Most houses in town are high and dry. You know, the lowest place, lowest actual building in town is the pub. So yeah.
John Milham (Host) · 13:11
And it's a, it's beautifully situated by the river there in this very sort of picturesque little place with gardens and outlook.
Chris Books (Guest) · 13:18
It's, well, the pub's actually on about 8 acres, so it's, it's quite a, but that's, that's it. It's a floodplain. So it's, it's You can't really do anything with it. But, and, and to give people an idea, if anyone ever goes up there and sees how low the, the creek normally is when it's running, the flood came through at over 12 meters. Wow. Yeah. So it's pretty high. Yeah. And the other bad thing is, the other amazing thing I should say is everything floats away. You know, water tanks float away even if they're full of water. Yeah. Outdoor furniture all floats away even though you can barely lift it. It's that heavy. The ice machine floated, ice box floated away even though it was full of ice. So, you know, and, and some gas tanks. So, you know, we're, we're, we're, we're, we don't have any services. We're on tank water, bottled gas, and, and septics. And that's the really horrible bit is a lot of septic tanks go under. And so the floodwater is actually quite toxic.
John Milham (Host) · 14:16
Yeah. Yeah.
Chris Books (Guest) · 14:18
So you have to then clean out everything, you know? So yeah, it's, there's a lot of work, but you just gotta get on with it, you know? Yeah.
John Milham (Host) · 14:24
Well, that, you know, like I guess you can look back and say you've gotta get on with it, but you know, the, for the, for the people who were underwater, of course it's, it's devastating. How did you, you know, what was it like watching the water come up your walls?
Chris Books (Guest) · 14:39
Well, in the March one, we actually sat out the back of the pub and drank some beer, watched it come up. You know, it was a sort of— you don't ever expect it to get as high as it does.
John Milham (Host) · 14:53
Yeah.
Chris Books (Guest) · 14:53
You know, and the thing was, the peak of that flood was actually at 12, between 12 midnight and 1 in the morning, right? And I actually have a photo taken by the only local who was capable of taking a photo, um, and he just happened to take it at 12:30 AM that day. So I've got a picture of the flood at its peak.
John Milham (Host) · 15:13
Wow.
Chris Books (Guest) · 15:14
Which is quite incredible. Yeah. Um, and you look at it and you stand there where the picture was taken, look at it now, and people just go, you cannot believe it. No. You know, it's, um, it's, it's, it's a phenomenal amount of water in a very short period of time. So, um, we just, in fact, we just had another flood last week. So yeah, only small, but it broke the banks, but not by much. So, wow.
John Milham (Host) · 15:40
And so sort of, it's a, you know, almost a contract between you and the, and the lo— you know, like the, the gifts of the local area also come with a sort of, you know, payment due next time it rains type thing.
Chris Books (Guest) · 15:53
Well, that's, that's one way of looking at it, but I suppose you just get used to it. You just, it's part and parcel of living here. Wollombi is actually an Aboriginal word for meeting of the waters, cuz it's like Wollombi Brook, which is the actual creek. Is this— there's a north arm and a south arm, and they meet just north of, um, Wollombi, and then all the way up through to Broke, and then all the way through to the Hunter River. Well, so it's an actual system that everyone understands. So if the Hunter River's flooding, the water coming out of Wollombi Brook has got nowhere to go, and so gradually backs up through Broke and, and back to us, and then, yeah, back through Laguna. And, um, yeah, and then it's just contained here because we're a very narrow valley with very, well, high hills both sides and quite steep. So when it rains, and it really depends too which, which way the rain comes. So the little flood we had last week, that actually came from the Northern Brook, which is a bit different, um, to the Southern Brook, which is where the pub is. Um, so it depends which brook comes as well, who gets flooded and who doesn't get flooded. So, you know, I sound like a really well-versed local, you know. I've been here for 8 years now, but, um, I just— and I'm owning the pub, obviously I get to talk to a lot of people.
John Milham (Host) · 17:10
Yeah.
Chris Books (Guest) · 17:11
And I've sort of become a bit of an expert overnight, I suppose. But, you know, it's sort of— it is just interesting, you know. I'm in the local RFS too, so, you know, I was there for the bushfires as well. So, yeah, well, um, yeah, it's— it's—
John Milham (Host) · 17:25
you—
Chris Books (Guest) · 17:25
if you couldn't put up with it, you just have to leave because you can't stop That's really the answer.
John Milham (Host) · 17:30
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. I found it interesting, you know, like the pub is a central community hub, right? Sort of almost a community center in some ways, right? Everyone mentions it when they're talking about their place. And of course it's key to economic wellbeing as well as, as that sort of community focus. How do people view not just the business, but the history, the entity that is the meeting place, which is the pub really.
Chris Books (Guest) · 18:04
Yeah. Look, there's people, there's obviously a core group of people who go to the pub on a regular basis.
John Milham (Host) · 18:10
Yeah.
Chris Books (Guest) · 18:11
And you know all of those people intimately. Down at the next village, which is Laguna, which is only 7 kilometers south of here, there is a place called G&TP, which is not a, it's a, well, it's a wine, everyone calls it the wine bar. It's not actually a pub. So there's a lot of people going there. There's sort of two groups of people and a bit of cross-matching between the two. But in Wollongong by itself, anyone comes to Wollongong, Wollongong's got a T-intersection. Yeah, you either go north to Broken Singleton, south to Laguna and Sydney, or east to Cessnock, and then can't go anywhere else. There's only those two, and the pub sits right on the end of that T-intersection. So it, it really is the dead center of town. It is the driver of the economics of the town because it's really the only thing that attracts, you know, there's a couple little cafes and things, but it really does drive the, the two. And we are a tourist town, you know, the town, I mean, it's a farming community as well, it's a big cattle farming area around here, but, um, the town itself rely, and the businesses rely on the fact that pub's a pretty big drawcard. So, um, and yeah, the community, everyone knows what the pub is, everyone knows where the pub is. You know, it's, it's, um, you can't miss it. It's not a very big place, it's actually quite a small place, but, um, it used to be very big until Mel Jerd burnt it down in the '50s. But, um, uh, you know, and that's an— that's actually an indication of community spirit. In back in the 1950s, uh, Mel Jerd, who was the famous Dr. Jerd, even though he's never a doctor, um, he, he burnt— accidentally burnt the place down when he put petrol in the kerosene fridges. They had kerosene fridges then, and there's people up here who still have kerosene fridges.
John Milham (Host) · 19:50
Yeah, yeah.
Chris Books (Guest) · 19:50
Um, and it burnt down, and, and, um, the story is that— well, the truth of the matter is, is the community rebuilt the pub in 6 weeks.
John Milham (Host) · 20:01
Wow.
Chris Books (Guest) · 20:01
That's how important it was to this area.
John Milham (Host) · 20:03
Yeah.
Chris Books (Guest) · 20:04
I mean, it hasn't always been the only pub in the area. The Wollombi actually had 4 pubs at one stage.
John Milham (Host) · 20:10
Wow.
Chris Books (Guest) · 20:11
And what a lot of people don't realize is Wallumbi was meant to be quite a big metrop— not metropolis, but you know, it's— well, we sit on the Great North Road and, and, um, you know, it's got a sandstone— it's got two sandstone churches, it's got a sandstone school, sandstone— two sandstone, um, a telegraph office and another hotel. Wasn't a pub but a hotel. Um, you know, it was on the sandstone courthouse.
John Milham (Host) · 20:35
Yeah.
Chris Books (Guest) · 20:36
And a big magistrate's place, uh, that was built about a kilometer out of town. So it was meant to be a main thing until coal was discovered at Cessnock in Newcastle, and that, that's, that's when Wollombi sort of got cut off. But it was the Great North Road. The Great North Road, people in Sydney, it's still the Great North Road through, um, Five Dock. That's the same, that's the same road. So great.
John Milham (Host) · 21:01
Wow. Well, and of course, even beyond that, back, as you mentioned, right way back into First Nations, Wollombi had significance then too.
Chris Books (Guest) · 21:13
It did. Yes. Wollombi is very significant. I'm told, I don't profess to be an expert on this at all, but I'm told that Mount Nyengo, which is just over the back of us, is the second most sacred site in Australia.
John Milham (Host) · 21:27
Wow.
Chris Books (Guest) · 21:27
We have Aboriginal carvings, a lot of Aboriginal carvings around here. We have Tiddlick the Frog, which anyone who knows some Dreamtime, Tiddlick's one of the big Dreamtime stories. Well, Tiddlick is actually in Wollombi. There's this rock form, it's amazing when you see it. It's Tiddlick's a frog. When you look at this rock, you go, yeah, that's a frog. It really does look like, but Wollombi is interesting because it doesn't actually belong to any one nation. That's why it was a meeting place. They used to come here to meet so that the Darkinjung and, well, the Darkinjung and the Wobekals, and I think there's another one.
John Milham (Host) · 22:05
Yeah, Warranung or—
Chris Books (Guest) · 22:06
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So there's at least 3 that border on Wollongong, but none of them actually own it, apparently. Right. Wow. Although we do have an Aboriginal, little Aboriginal cultural center in the middle of town. They take people for tours and stuff.
John Milham (Host) · 22:21
So, so unbelievable. I love that. How did you feel when you walked in? You know, did you get a sense that you were inheriting sort of custodianship of all of, of that import, that place?
Chris Books (Guest) · 22:35
You know, very much so. I, I very much, you know, I was determined not to change anything straight away, which I do have to add is unfortunately a mistake that new owners have made. Um, yeah. Um, I was determined not to change things. I was determined to take on board the history of the place. You know, it's, it's not just, it's not just, it's the pub history, not, not just, but you know, the, the history of the town. Um, you know, the, um, the, the people I bought it off, um, they, they're a family that has been here since the 1800s.
John Milham (Host) · 23:09
Wow.
Chris Books (Guest) · 23:10
Um, there was a brother and sister who were the main— there was 4 partners who owned it before me, and, and there was a brother and sister, and they were of a family name. There's only— there's about half a dozen family names up here that were here that have been here forever. Yeah, yeah. And they're one of them. It was like I said, it was actually, it was the brother, because they both still worked for me after I bought the pub too. Um, but the brother was the one who rang me to tell me that the flood was coming. Um, uh, Dennis is his name. And, uh, you know, so I was determined and I, you know, I researched what I could about the pubs. Like, I have a research back to the day they first built the pub, which is back back— I can't remember the exact date off top of my head, but it's back in the early 1800s. They actually moved, and it wasn't called Wallamai Tavern then, it was actually called Hawkesbury Hotel.
John Milham (Host) · 23:59
Wow.
Chris Books (Guest) · 24:00
But it went through a few different things. It became a boarding house for a while. Um, it did get rebuilt a couple of times. Um, so the, the incantation before the current one, it was a two-story timber dwelt, timber place. The original one was a stone, sandstone place. It was moved up here from sort of around Wiseman's Ferry, St. Albans way.
John Milham (Host) · 24:19
Maybe that's why it was the Hawkesbury.
Chris Books (Guest) · 24:22
They came from the Hawkesbury. Came from the Hawkesbury. Yeah, yeah. And I actually, my family connection goes back to what, surprisingly enough, my family goes back to Wiseman's Ferry and, um, traced back to 1803.
John Milham (Host) · 24:35
Wow.
Chris Books (Guest) · 24:35
So, you know, and a lot of local families here came from Wiseman's Ferry. So that's what I say to people, I'm probably related to a lot of you somewhere along the way.
John Milham (Host) · 24:44
So it makes sense why that Wiseman's, uh, population was the first one to break out. So they were probably the the frontiersman, the trailblazer.
Chris Books (Guest) · 24:53
Oh yeah. No, it was, it was, it was, yeah. My grandfather was even born at Wiseman's Ferry.
John Milham (Host) · 24:58
So, my goodness.
Chris Books (Guest) · 25:00
Yeah.
John Milham (Host) · 25:00
Wow. So when you inherited that sense of custodianship, what did you discover about the town and what conclusions did you come to?
Chris Books (Guest) · 25:13
Oh, look, it's a very quiet little place now, but it's been a booming, look, not so much a bust, but it's been a bit of a boom and bust place as, as different industries came and went. Um, you know, at one stage it was a massive dairy industry. There's not a dairy to be seen around here at all now. Um, it was very much a logging industry place. Um, like I say, at one stage it had, um, there was at least 4 pubs at one time. In the town. One of the things that— one of the big histories of the tavern itself was that land at the back, it was mainly used for the old bullocky guys coming up to pick up the timber. So they'd camp overnight there and keep their bullocks at the back there, you know. And then, and then now it has actually done a bit of a turn back around to cattle, so it's now beef cattle, but not big concerns. It's Properties around here, whilst properties can be in hundreds of acres, often most of that is inaccessible, or not inaccessible, but not useful for farming.
John Milham (Host) · 26:18
Yeah. Yeah. Small herds and small herds.
Chris Books (Guest) · 26:21
But you know, we do have a cattle sale yard in town, for instance. We, which is still once a month, they might have a cattle sale there. Most cattle sales go up to Singleton now, but yeah, it's still just a nice quiet little country town, you know, especially mainly I could say about it, it's, it, it sort of had its boom times, it's had its not so much bust times, but it's, it's, it's gone back to just being, I suppose if I was to say a negative about, I sound like I say everything's positive, the negative about the place at the moment is, is it's actually getting very expensive to live here.
John Milham (Host) · 26:56
Right.
Chris Books (Guest) · 26:57
And so it's actually keeping, um, the sort of younger generation from sort of being able to buy here. You know, you can, yeah. You know, property here is, is it Sydney prop? Cause it's full of, you know, we've got more, I reckon our population of lawyers and accountants is bigger than anywhere else in Australia. Right, right. All with these holiday homes. I mean, you know, for instance, the Noyce family come from here. So Phil, Phil Noyce.
John Milham (Host) · 27:25
Yeah, yeah, that's right.
Chris Books (Guest) · 27:27
Yeah. So, well, they've got a winery, but you know, to give you an example, Phil Noyce is a filmmaker. Michael Noyce is a, a lawyer. The other brother, who I don't know his name, sorry, is a surgeon, you know, and their place is worth a squillion. So it is a shame. I think that's happening in quite a few country towns, but it's a shame that a lot of Sydney people buy weekend properties up here. Or, and the other killer is these BS, um, Airbnbs and what have you. Yeah, yeah, we have a lot of them now.
John Milham (Host) · 27:57
So yeah, well, you know, that's like a modern challenge, isn't it, for the to keep traditions and lifestyles in place given all of these kind of external challenges?
Chris Books (Guest) · 28:11
Yeah. Well, that's the thing. People come up here and fall in love with the beauty of the place. I mean, it's a beautiful place and it's quintessential when you come in, it's a cute little town, but this is how much people fall in love with it at Laguna. There's a a, well, very rich gentleman who was very, but well, benevolent. He actually built a full-size cricket ground for the area out of his own money. If he still sits— but still sits there and it gets flooded, but it's got a white picket fence. I'm, I'm told that it's the same size as North Sydney Oval. That's on his private property, but the local cricket club's allowed to play there. And only since we've been here, um, he built a— I'm not sure how many lanes it is off the top of my head— but he built a 25-meter pool for the, for the community to use for free. There's a few rules and things, I won't go to that, but yeah, obviously. But, um, but, you know, he fought with council because, you know, they, they tried to make him do all sorts of things. But anyway, and, you know, that's the sort of thing, that's how much people fall in love with the place, you know. In fact, that was one of the reasons I was made an offer for the pub, was because someone was— another gentleman up here was trying to buy most— a lot of things. A lot of people don't like that, but he was buying a lot of things to make sure it didn't fall into the wrong hands.
John Milham (Host) · 29:33
Yeah. Yeah.
Chris Books (Guest) · 29:34
Wow. Wow. Because he loves the place.
John Milham (Host) · 29:37
Well, and it's that love, you know, like in talking to people, I noted that they would— you mentioned it as well, that they came to get the pub back on track. Right after, you know, obviously when the water's so high, you know, nearly to the ceiling, right? A business is, especially floodwater, a business is impacted badly.
Chris Books (Guest) · 30:00
Yeah, no, well, you know, we had people out, we, well, the streets were blocked anyway, so the whole street out the road out the front of the pub was just a mass of people washing things, cleaning things, you know, working out what we're gonna throw away. And look, one of the biggest couple of things people don't even know. I didn't realize either, to be honest. But, you know, everything that's used for food preparation has to be thrown away. Yeah. Um, anything that cannot be successfully washed has to, has to be thrown away. Um, you lose things, you lose TVs, you lose computers, printers, you lose all of that. Um, but, and one of the worst things— I shouldn't say one of the worst things, but it's something I never even thought of— um, was, you know, in the kitchen we have deep fat fries because, because it's a pub. Schnitzel chips.
John Milham (Host) · 30:45
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Chris Books (Guest) · 30:47
Well, all the oil comes out of the fryer and basically coats everything in this layer of oil, which is just disgusting. The, you know, it's slippery in there because kitchen floors are, you know, are prone to be slippery anyway. You know, the building itself wasn't really damaged. We lost all the electrical, so that was, that was the main reason it took us 2 weeks to reopen. Because we had to redo all the electrics. But the building itself actually survived remarkably intact. Some doors swelled, but the building itself was pretty good. The bar collapsed. But the beauty of it was, like I said, the people who were buying the pub off me anyway, they were going to renovate anyway. So in some ways it actually saved them money because a lot of stuff that they were going to throw away anyway was thrown away. And, um, you know, the council were very good. Council were excellent, to be honest. They provided big giant skip bins for us to put all the stuff in, um, and removed it when we rang them. Um, there was a, a, uh, a lady at council, it was her responsibility, and she's still there and she's fantastic. You can ask her for anything. You know, most people love to bag their local councils. I, I say They, they were— well, my wife rang and said, are you going to come? Because I think Singleton Council sent out their guys to clean up the streets, to pick up all the rubbish. My wife rang council to say, are you guys sending out someone? And they said no. And then next thing, uh, Melissa, that's the lady there, rang her back and said, no, I'll arrange for skip bins to come out and you tell me when they're full and I'll arrange for them to be picked up. We had to put everything in, but that's fine. I mean, we didn't mind. You know, I had locals come down with Bobcats to help move the heavy equipment and put that, the stuff that we had to throw, fridges and stuff that we had to throw.
John Milham (Host) · 32:38
That, that, uh, roaming ice machine.
Chris Books (Guest) · 32:40
Yeah, the roaming ice machine. Well, um, we've actually lost 3 of them since we've owned the pub. In fact, the ice people said, we're not going to give you another one, but I ended up talking them into giving me another one.
John Milham (Host) · 32:50
But, um, well, we'll give them a plug here now. Thank you very much.
Chris Books (Guest) · 32:54
Right. Yeah. Um, well, one, one has still never been found. One of the ice boxes. And I'm talking quite a big one, it holds 300 bags of ice, so it's not, not really small. Um, and the other big shout out I've got to give to is the Army. When the Army turned up, that was just so good having these young— they were young blokes, they just finished their recruit course and they're up at Singleton waiting to be deployed to their regiments or their various— whoever they were going to. Um, they turned up, they had a young lieutenant a couple of corporals, and they would do anything. And even down to the lieutenant, you know, being ex-army, I sort of, you know, he came up and he said, what do you want me to do? And I said, well, I'm not going to ask you to do anything. He said, no, no, I'm here to work too. So, but the army would do anything. We had a, um, I don't know if people know what a Pelican is. A Pelican is one of those cubes you see with the metal frame with the white plastic that they carry, um, liquid in. Yeah. One of them was on the roof. With the pub. So, and the army—
John Milham (Host) · 33:55
that was the firefighting stuff ended up on the roof after the flood, right?
Chris Books (Guest) · 34:00
Yeah. And, um, one of the army boys come and said, what else do you want us to do? I said, well, if you can get that down off the roof now for me, that'd be great. You know, I'm in my 60s now. Climbing on roofs is not my go anymore. So, I know, nothing was a problem for them. In fact, one of the ice— one of the ice, um, the ice box that on that one, it had tipped over on its back. So they actually climbed in to get all the ice bags out.
John Milham (Host) · 34:27
Wow.
Chris Books (Guest) · 34:28
So it is because it floated away and laid down on its back. So, um, yeah, so it's amazing the, the goodwill of a lot of people. You know, the first thing that happens here in a flood is the fire brigade comes and hoses everyone's properties out. So because that's what you got to do, you got to get rid of that mud. The mud is the killer. Yeah, it stinks. It sticks like it just sticks. You can't— you don't want to let the mud dry out. You got to get into it while it's wet. Well, like I said, being part of the fire brigade, I even sort of left the pub a few days and went and did my bit hosing out other people's places.
John Milham (Host) · 35:06
I love the story. And the army get a good— you know, those young blokes, they've certainly impressed a lot of people. In, in Broke and, and Wamby now. So well done. What about, you know, you, as you said, you were with the, the RFS. How do you, you know, Australia relies on volunteer first responders, right? Do you think that works?
Chris Books (Guest) · 35:33
Well, it does only 'cause it has to, which may sound like a silly thing. It unfortunately for us up here, I can't tell you the exact average age of our members, but it's very much an ageing membership of our RFS. We are in a very difficult area to fight fires because it's very steep. Other fire brigades hate coming out to help us when we have a fire because no one realises just how steep it is here. We have no water, so it makes it interesting. It's something that I think a lot of the old-timers are determined that it's got to be volunteer. Yeah, um, it's far more demanding now. I'm, I'm actually just about to become the captain of Wallenboy. I'm the senior deputy captain at the moment, and really the captain's job is almost a full-time job. Yeah, you know, it has to be someone who's retired basically and has the time to put in, the amount of time that sort of— because the RFS is the professional side of the RFS has turned into such a monster. Yeah, it's a monster that needs to be fed all the time and And they just find new, better ways to make us do things for them. And, um, and it's also, you know, get on my little soapbox here, but it's too easy for them to call us out all the time because it's free, basically. You know, I mean, obviously that, you know, there's, there's a lot of equipment that's been supplied and paid for and what have you, but, you know, it's very easy to, to turn out people who aren't getting paid. And, um, yeah. I think you have this massive disparity between Fire and Rescue and Rural Fire Service, that their what's called retained firefighters get paid when they get called out. During the 2019-2025s, there was a lot of people here who put in 30+ days, and they're 12-hour days. So, and 2 shifts a day. So yeah, 8 to 8 and 8 to 8. Yeah. So, and, and a lot of people from outside who came to help us too, who did that as well. But, or maybe not the third, but that's a lot of time for people to give up. A lot of these people are self-employed. Yeah. You know, so they, they're actually not making money and losing money at the same time. By losing property. And yeah, we did pretty well in the fires, we didn't lose too much property. But it's a lot to ask of volunteers and then be so strict about what you tell them what they can and can't do. Yeah, yeah, that's probably where, you know, the idea of RFS back in the day when you ran it from sausage sizzles and, you know, it was bought an old army truck and painted it, put a pump on the back, and yeah, might have given you a pair of white overalls or something. I mean, we do walk around in $300 fire boots now that are given to us, but it's still a lot of work and effort. And like I said, I'm in my early 60s now. I struggle walking up and down the— I've actually been told I've got to have a hip replacement, so I probably won't be doing it for too many more years. But it is hard. And with not having a supply of younger people living in the area, we're not getting the the new people to replace the people we lose. Yeah, yeah, uh, it's hard.
John Milham (Host) · 38:51
Yeah, the models might have to be looked at into the future.
Chris Books (Guest) · 38:55
Yeah, well, you know, even down to, you know, you know, you go and do courses and things and, um, you got to do them on weekends, so, or at night. And the other thing about the RFS, or like all organizations, everything's becoming more digital. And now that's scaring away the older people, 'cause a lot of people, particularly in this, like for instance here at Wallumbi, you drive within driving 1 kilometer in either direction from the pub, you no longer have phone connection.
John Milham (Host) · 39:22
Yeah. Wow.
Chris Books (Guest) · 39:23
Yeah. We, we, we've got one Telstra tower in town. If you are a Telstra customer, you don't get, so heading to Sydney, you've gotta drive about 30 to 40 kilometers before you actually get mobile phone connection again. Yeah. So people up here don't have smartphones necessarily. No.
John Milham (Host) · 39:41
And of course in the flood, that was an issue, right? Keeping, you know, yeah. So now, you know, like, uh, we've heard about the, uh, program to roll out, um, Citizen Band and, you know, alternatives, communication alternatives, I guess.
Chris Books (Guest) · 39:55
Yeah. Again, but of course we've got lots of little valleys, even, even the government radio network, which is what what the RFS, police, ambulance all work on, doesn't work in half the valleys around here. And that was actually a big thing, bit of discomfort or disquiet amongst the community. Yeah, we, the RFS, were forbidden to go into certain areas during the fire because it wasn't safe, because we didn't, we had no communications. Well, the people who lived in those areas weren't particularly happy.
John Milham (Host) · 40:24
No, no, you can imagine. So did some of those issues, like issues like that, did you notice come up in the floods, right? You know, highlighting some of the gaps.
Chris Books (Guest) · 40:34
Not so much the floods. I mean, you still got the issue of no mobile phones and they've sort of stopped servicing, you know, landlines around here now. So, and people are dropped, well, you know, I just dropped my landline because I don't need it anymore. The best thing that's happened to here in a long time is Starlink. Yeah, yeah, I don't, I don't really want to give them a plug, but no, Starlink works. Um, our other choices here were still— I was still on ADSL until I got Starlink. And, um, or you got that Skymaster, which is not particularly good either. And see, both of those were very— and we rely heavily on digital, you know. And, um, so yeah, Starlink has really— if, if that keeps going and works the way they believe it's going to work. You know, we, we're on satellite TV here. We can't even get TV from a TV aerial.
John Milham (Host) · 41:29
Oh wow, man.
Chris Books (Guest) · 41:31
Yeah. So it, it is a, you know, like 2 hours from Sydney and a million miles from nowhere.
John Milham (Host) · 41:35
Yeah.
Chris Books (Guest) · 41:36
Yeah.
John Milham (Host) · 41:36
What do you, which kind of reminds me, you know, like the flood. So you've, you know, your business, you know, your home's okay, but the business, which is iconic to the villages, has been, you know, completely inundated. And then you've got, you know, the community coming around and helping you and then, you know, the community itself repairing and cleaning itself up and, you know, nursing its wounds. What do you think? Was there anything good that came out of this experience? You know, you're very positive about the process and accepting of the challenge. Yeah. What benefits come from a community facing a situation like this?
Chris Books (Guest) · 42:13
Oh, well, I think the biggest benefit is it just reinforces that community spirit. I suppose that's the biggest benefit. We all know each other. We all, we know we need to help each other on a regular basis. We've had elderly people around here that people go up, used to go, well, unfortunately they've died now, but people would go around and light their fire for them or go around and make sure that they got out of bed okay that morning. You just don't, you wouldn't see it in the city. It's I suppose that's, I suppose that's what it does. It just reinforces that we, we are reliant on each other. Yeah, we look out for each other a lot, and, um, you know, we try to help each other as much as we can. And, and, you know, I'm not going to say everyone loves everyone around here, that's just impossible. Yeah, but, you know, there's a lot of good people, and I'm sure there's a lot of good people everywhere in the world, but, but what, what, what, you know, I'm Sydney born and bred, you know. I, I lived in Sydney for, well, what was it, 56 years. So, um, and, you know, well, my childhood in Sydney in the '60s, you know, yes, we used to go out until the lights came on and all that sort of thing. But nowadays people just don't even— you don't even know who your neighbors are, let alone talk to them. Yeah. And I think that's the difference with the— with And that's reinforced by natural disasters that happen. And unfortunately, Wollombi is massively prone to flooding and we're equally massively prone to bushfires. It's a very heavily timbered area now, despite the fact that it was a logging area. It's very heavily timbered. You come out here now, you can barely pick what anything from the 2019, 2025s.
John Milham (Host) · 44:04
Wow.
Chris Books (Guest) · 44:05
Basically completely grown back. So, and you know, we were surrounded by fire. So I, I went in my house, I could sit here at night and see that just an orange glow completely around us.
John Milham (Host) · 44:16
Yeah. Well, now that, you know, like you got through, uh, you know, the, the pub was cleaned up, uh, you know, the, um, floating debris was gathered and, and disposed of. And you started trading and then you've moved on. What do you think you've learned from this experience? So you've been through a few different things and now another big flood.
Chris Books (Guest) · 44:42
I just think you've got to learn to be, I just think you learn resilience. At the end of the day, life's not easy. It's the old Paul Keating. Yeah.
John Milham (Host) · 44:53
Wasn't meant to be easy.
Chris Books (Guest) · 44:55
Life's not meant to be easy. And you know, you can sit down and curl up in a ball and cry and, you know, the flood in particular was very hard on my wife. Yeah, she was fine through the fire. She's in the fire brigade as well, but she's fine through the fire. She's a nurse, so she's used to seeing, you know, disaster and what have you and people in pain. But the flood actually hit her fairly hard. So So we actually went away on a bit of an extended holiday after the flood. But yeah, I'm just— my wife hates— she says you're just too laid back, you know. I mean, but I don't— I don't know, I've never really expected anyone to do anything for me. So ever since I left the army, I've pretty much worked for myself. And I didn't— I wasn't born with a silver spoon in my mouth, you know. I probably, you know, I've made my own bed and I've always just worked hard. I mean, my whole life I've just never expected anyone to do anything. And then to come to a place like this and see people go out of their way to help you in lots of different ways, you know, people do whatever they could, you know. I know I keep harking back to the fires, but you know, the stuff that people were dropping down at the fire shed during those fires, you know, just cakes and, you know, lasagna, you know, and also, well, and big, you know, donating chainsaws. And the same at the pub, you know, people would say, you know, and, um, you know, is there anything we can do? Is there anything I can do? Mind you, you did have some idiots as well, and mainly tourists who'd come up. And I think that was what got to my wife more than anything, was some of the, the people came up just to have a look. And, you know, we're in the middle of trying to clean the place out, and these people pull up in their little flash Mercedes-Benz sports car and wander across the road and, you know, and start asking. Still, I can't remember what I've asked, a really stupid question, which I can't even think what it was. But my wife actually swore at them and told them in no uncertain terms to get out of town. So, uh, but you know, it, it, the thing is, is that the people in the area would never do that. People around here, they just know. People know that, you know. And look, and, and I suppose the other one was the help People, like I said before, people are very quick to bag the council and bag governments. The help and assistance that was offered without us necessarily asking for it, the Services New South Wales sent people out just to check that everyone— they actually set up in the community hall was above the flood mark. They set up Services New South Wales people there to go through with people what they're entitled to, what they could do. One was a specialist business person. She was very good. Local members, all councillors came out and not to big themselves, I must admit. People do tend to give them a bit of a hard time. They were generally concerned and wanting to see what they could do to help. One was our new member in federal government, a guy by the name of Dan Rapacioli. He's big, you can't miss him. I'm 6'2", he's about 6'27". He's a massive guy with a massive big beard. And he'd only just been— only just been voted in, and he dropped in here a couple of times. Now, you know, it's a long way out of the way, whether he's in Canberra or whether he's in Cessnock, for a busy man. And, um, before that, um, Joel Fitzgibbon was our member. Yeah, when he came out here a few times, you know, earlier, like in the fires and stuff. And, you know, they're lovely people. No, I don't think we see the good side of politicians at all on mainstream media.
John Milham (Host) · 48:43
But well, you know, like, I could be cynical and ask which side is the good side of a politician, right? The one that's, you know, walking away from you, right? But obviously that's not the case here.
Chris Books (Guest) · 48:54
Well, you know, I'm not basing it on parties. I'm not even basing it on politics. They're just human beings. It's like anyone, a high-profile sport. Sports people, you know, that when you get to know some of them— I used to have a fairly large involvement in rugby league in Sydney, and so I, I, I, I knew a lot of, um, well, high-profile and ex-high-profile, older high-profile rugby league players, and, and, um, they're just lovely people when you get them away from things, you know. And, and I think, you know, that's the beauty of living in a community like this is you already know that about people. You already know exactly what they like because you've spoken to them, you've run into them. You know, we've got one general store in town, we've got two cafes and a pub. That's it. It's pretty hard to avoid people. So, and, and, you know, even when we— because we go into Cessnock for our sort of shopping and that, which is only 25 minutes away, but it's— that's 25 minutes at 100 kilometers an hour. But you know, you can't walk through Woolworths without having to stop 5 times to have a chat with someone from Wollongong. Yeah. Wow. And I'm sure Broke is the same. I mean, I've got, you know, I know Broke's very much the same. It's, it's, Broke's a little bit, well, it's a, it's a bit different to Wollongong, but yeah, it's a similar sort of place.
John Milham (Host) · 50:17
Well, I think maybe everything's different to Wollongong, right? Yeah. It's a fairly unique place. So, and I, I love that. So, you know, given that character and obviously the incredible positivity that you have for the place. What, what, what do you think's in the future for Wallumbi and the area?
Chris Books (Guest) · 50:34
Well, I can see it changing now. A lot of the, the, the sort of, like I said, a lot of the more original local people, people who've been here a long time, you know, it's, it's, Wallumbi's reinvented itself every time. You know, we actually have quite an aged population, like I mentioned earlier. So we've got a lot of people sort of in their 70s. Mm-hmm. Um, and they're just, now they're just lovely old people. But when you listen to their stories, they're actually hippies who came up here in the '70s cuz they could smoke dope and, you know, keep outta—
John Milham (Host) · 51:06
Light in the tree line, right?
Chris Books (Guest) · 51:07
Yeah. Keep outta the limelight. And, and now they're these, you know, 70 and 80-year-old people, lovely sweet old ladies or, and gentlemen who were once just these and, and And, and it were once just these sort of free spirit wild people, you know, and, and, um, you know, and then unfortunately what's driving them out of here is health issues. Yeah. You know, we're a long way from, um, you know, well, to go to the doctor, you have to go, we do have a couple of doctors who live here around here, but they work elsewhere.
John Milham (Host) · 51:39
Yeah.
Chris Books (Guest) · 51:39
So, you know, to go to the doctor, you gotta go to Cessnock at minimum, you know, and to get to a decent, decent hospital, you probably gotta go to Sydney.
John Milham (Host) · 51:47
Yeah. Wow.
Chris Books (Guest) · 51:48
Or, or John Hunter. But you know, it's sort of, you know, that's probably the thing that will drive the next change around here. You know, there'll probably be a fair, well, there's a bit of real estate on the market at the moment, but it's grossly overpriced. Hmm. But what will drive the next change around here will be that there will be a generational change because there is a, like I say, it's a fairly high percentage of the population is in that aging sort of needing access to healthcare age group.
John Milham (Host) · 52:17
Yeah.
Chris Books (Guest) · 52:17
But you know, we've got a thriving little school down at Laguna. Well, my school, one of my schools actually run as an Aboriginal school now by Barker College.
John Milham (Host) · 52:25
Oh, wow.
Chris Books (Guest) · 52:26
Um, but the, the public school, the, the, the, the, there was always the Wallumbi Public School and Laguna Public School. And over the years, um, one's closed and one's open depending on where the kids live mostly. At the moment, they're all at Laguna, but it's a good little school. It's been there for— Well, Wallumbi School was built in 1852, and Laguna School not that much longer after that.
John Milham (Host) · 52:52
So it is changing. You're predicting a change. What would you hope that change would bring to the area?
Chris Books (Guest) · 52:58
I think just to keep it— I have people move here because they want to live the Wallumbi lifestyle, not because they want to come and change Wollongong. Yeah, that would probably be my thing, you know. It's, um, but what's, what's sort of stopping that, I suppose, is, is the cost, you know. Like I say, um, good friends of ours, um, their house burnt down, um, few weeks ago, well, probably a couple months ago now, come to think of it. Um, in fact, Tiddlick is on their property, the Tiddlick Frog. Um, and, uh, but their house burnt to the ground. They just— they want to move out now. They sort of— well, there's been a few bad things, you know? They can't put up with it. They're staying in the area because I actually own a business in the area then, wine bus tour business. But even she said to us, she said for what we pay— Well, for a lot less money, in other parts of the Hunter, we can get exactly what you get in Wollombi, or for what you pay for what you're going to buy in Wollombi, you get a much better property elsewhere. And probably the difference is, is you're not getting that little bit of Wollombi. But yeah, it's just a shame, I think, you know, that things are— when we first bought here, it was, you know, quite achievable to sort of buy around here at a reasonable price, not necessarily a big house or something, but you know, um, but you know, there's a lot for sale at the moment, not a lot selling. Um, you know, look, best example I can give you is the general store. The general store's been for sale since before COVID right? In my humble opinion, they're a bit greedy. They want too much money. But to run a general store that's open 7 days a week, you're really looking for a young family. Yeah, yeah.
John Milham (Host) · 54:51
That's been a traditional entry point, hasn't it? Yeah.
Chris Books (Guest) · 54:53
It's a young family who, you know, mom and dad basically run it most of the time. The kids help out on weekends, you know, or they might have a couple of staff members or whatever. The problem is, is to buy that general store, it's close on $2 million that they want. Wow. And then to buy it, you can't buy a house around here for under $1.5 million.
John Milham (Host) · 55:15
Wow.
Chris Books (Guest) · 55:16
What young family trying to get outta Sydney's got $3.5, $4 million? Right. You know, and that's a pretty much a starting point up here, you know?
John Milham (Host) · 55:25
So, um, yeah, it'll definitely change then in the future. I wonder if, um, you know, as you say, you know, like you, you would like the next, the inheritors of the Wallumbi tradition to, to keep things, you know, related to, to what it's always been. I wonder if that includes future floods.
Chris Books (Guest) · 55:46
Well, it'd have to, you know. I mean, you know, you'll never hear anyone around here say, oh, the government's got to do something about the flooding. You'll never hear that. It's a bit like they say, the people of Kempsey, people say, oh, they should just move more out of there. None of them want to move. No, it's pretty much the same here. So, um, you know, and, and if you— unless you've lived through a flood, the idea of flood mitigation for a flood like that one in July 2022 Even if they built mitigation that would've stopped the flood, would've met, wait, at the 2007 level, would've gone over it.
John Milham (Host) · 56:22
Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's always gonna eventually, records are set to be broken, aren't they?
Chris Books (Guest) · 56:27
Exactly. And, and, and you know, I think that's something that, you know, it's, you just have to accept that that's what happens here. And, and yeah, there's a lot of people who have properties here. I'm not gonna mention names, but you know, people who don't have to live here, but they live here because, well, they, not necessarily, but they've got property here, but they want it because they love it, not because they— I've cleaned out not so much houses. Most houses are built above flood levels, common law flood levels. The village itself is probably most at risk because it's probably at the lowest point. But there's a lot of relatively famous people who own property up here. Yeah, and they've been here for years and they've had, you know, but you, what you do do is you go and wash out sheds and not necessarily house, but washing out sheds and outbuildings sort of thing that go under and they still stay there, you know, washing down tennis courts. So, um, it's amazing seeing a tennis court. I don't know, did you, I don't know if you saw in any of your visits around here the, the, the amount of the detritus that was on fences and stuff like, oh yeah, yeah, the, you know, the, the, um brush fences, like where they were once wire fences. And then—
John Milham (Host) · 57:41
Yeah.
Chris Books (Guest) · 57:42
Well, you imagine that with a tennis court. Yeah. A tennis court is 10 times as bad. Wow. Wow. And look, and there's another thing that people don't see. There's people who will come out and just pick all that rubbish off the fence for you.
John Milham (Host) · 57:54
Yeah. Yeah.
Chris Books (Guest) · 57:55
There's actually a mob that come and do that and they're volunteers. So I suppose if you believe in the goodness of human spirit, and you, and you see it occasionally, it makes these things not so bad in the big term. I mean, I'm, I'm sure there's plenty of people who are nowhere near as positive as me. There's plenty of people who got quite distraught and, and, you know, possibly permanently damaged by living through the floods.
John Milham (Host) · 58:22
Well, there was trauma and people, people suffered.
Chris Books (Guest) · 58:25
Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, look, I, I openly admit that, you know, was, um, we had a guy here literally settled on his property on the Friday before the flood.
John Milham (Host) · 58:35
Wow.
Chris Books (Guest) · 58:36
And it completely went under. It was one of the only houses that went under. And the interesting thing about that was the previous owner, um, it's a two-story house, and the previous owner had paid a fortune to have these floodproof doors put in on the, on the lower level, right? Well, that was after the March flood, so He paid a fortune to put these floodproof doors in. Come July, when the new owners just bought it on the premise that it's got floodproof doors— no, they weren't floodproof.
John Milham (Host) · 59:09
Oh gosh, there's a hard lesson to learn the hard way.
Chris Books (Guest) · 59:13
Oh, exactly. Well, I never actually got to see them because— and I'm a builder, that's my business in Sydney, building— and I can't imagine how you can build a workable hinge door that is floodproof. Waterproof. So, and you know, I mean, to make things waterproof, you gotta have a look at what's on board ships and Navy ships and merchant ships to, to make a weatherproof door. There, there's a hell of a lot different to the doors to a house.
John Milham (Host) · 59:38
Very much so. Yeah. Well, that's been fascinating, Chris, and thank you so much. It's been amazing to hear how enthusiastic you are for both the area, the efforts people made to support each other, but, and also just, you know, the acceptance that's, you know, that it's part of the process of living in Wollongong.
Chris Books (Guest) · 1:00:02
Yeah. Well, you know, it's, it's like wherever you go, I, you know, my wife and I, we went for a bit of a drive around Western New South Wales a couple of weeks ago, just, just to get away from the place for a while. And there was a lot of, um, grass fires at the time, you know, and, and just seeing some of these big grass fires, which we don't see here at all, you know, pretty much, because we're not a, we're not a cropping or grain area at all. I personally think a lot of those fires were lit on purpose to clean up after, after the harvest. But, you know, and just see that, that's a different thing, you know. And, and drought, you know, we, we have gone through drought here, but drought here is nothing like drought out, out west, man, out west, you know. And so, um, you know, actually prior, from 2000, from when I bought up here to 2019, we were in a drought for that 5 years. But it was called a green drought because it rained enough for it to remain green. But, um, you know, I mean, I think everyone has their challenges, so it doesn't matter where you go. Living in Sydney is just a challenge to get from one place to another in some sort of reasonable time.
John Milham (Host) · 1:01:11
Very, very difficult challenge at times. Yeah.
Chris Books (Guest) · 1:01:14
So, you know, I don't miss that. I love it. I can say, you know, the positives way outweigh the negatives.
John Milham (Host) · 1:01:21
Beautiful. Well, thank you, mate. Thank you for sharing some time and your stories with us. And I'd like to acknowledge, you know, your energy, your commitment to your community, your service in that way too, which you haven't really talked about, but other people have. So appreciate it, mate. Good on you.
Chris Books (Guest) · 1:01:41
Thanks, John. It's been a pleasure. I actually enjoyed talking about it too. I find it quite cathartic to talk about.
John Milham (Host) · 1:01:47
I'm really, really happy the Kintsugi Heroes listeners got a chance to share that with you, mate. Thank you.
Chris Books (Guest) · 1:01:54
Okay. Thank you.
John Milham (Host) · 1:01:55
Cheers, John. All the best, my friend. Thank you for listening to this week's episode episode of Beyond the Deluge about the 2022 floods in Broke and the Hunter Valley. If anything in this conversation has had a triggering effect, please seek support and find someone who can help keep you safe. Please share the show to your friends, family, and colleagues so we can help more people with their recovery from natural disaster. If you'd like to find out more about Kintsugi Heroes and our other podcasts, please head to kintsugiheroes.com.au. Our theme song was provided by Colin Lillie. Thanks to Matthew Bliss for editing and production and to John Millum for hosting the conversations. And most of all, thank you to the community of Broke and the Hunter Valley for sharing their lived experience with us. We'll see you next week in Beyond the Deluge.
Chris Books (Guest) · 1:02:53
Only when it's broken. Only when it's broken. When it hits you in the middle of the night and the truth burns so bright. Only when it's broken. Only when it's broken.
John Milham (Host) · 1:03:19
Take pride in those cries.
Chris Books (Guest) · 1:03:21
It's only for tonight, and then you rise. Only when you're broken. Only when you're broken. Only when you're broken.
You don't have to be in crisis to call.
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