11-12/04/2023 In Praise of Public Libraries

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We stayed in a cabin at the Temora Airfield Caravan Park, discovering along the way that Temora was the site for the RAAF No 10 Elementary Fyling Training School which was the largest and longest-lived flying training school established under the Empire Air Training Scheme during WWII.  When it closed in 1946 Temora wasn't about to let a good facility go to waste, and set itself up as the preferred aerodrome for all things air-related: parachuting, gliding, ultra-light, aerobatics, and model aircraft.

The Temora Airfield Caravan Park was squeezed in between the airfield proper, and the airport estate. For those of you who don’t know, an airport estate is just like a canal estate with planes instead of boats and taxiways instead of canals. Every house had a hangar in place of a backyard shed and some of them had their priorities evident, with just a hangar with a little corner set aside for human living.

Our breakfast view.

A little walkway led from the caravan park to the Temora Aviation Museum, crossing an active taxi way as it went. Alas, we couldn’t get to the museum due to having to work, but we were happily entertained by the odd Spitfire fly-by at regular intervals throughout the day.

Walkway across an active taxiway to a museum and a playground.  What could possibly go wrong?
 
Mice rampaged in the ceiling of our cabin at night, and by 0900 on Tuesday it was obvious that work was not possible on the tenuous connection available at the cabin. Roger segued to working off line while I decamped to the local public library, thanking my lucky stars that I didn’t have too many meetings that Tuesday.  I hung out in the corner with the Westerns and made friends with the librarians.
 
Whilst trying to work I was entertained by some of Temora's more mature ladies who had not the slightest inhibitions about discussing their latest raunchy bodice-ripping read.  Oh my goodness me, and I though little old mature ladies were staid!
 
 
All those books and not a chance to read them.

Working in the library also excused me from my boring lunch back at the cabin, and gave me a chance to wander the main street of Temora, looking at all the old Art Deco buildings in various states of (dis)repair.
 
 
Beautiful old building.
 
*Wednesday rolled around with a work conundrum: a videoconference at 0900, a library which didn’t open until 0930, and rain. No worries! I hopped in the car and took myself off looking for a park at which to base myself, coming rapidly to the sad conclusion that a) the rain was getting heavier and b) Temora was sadly lacking in the park department.

"Wow!" said the person on the other end of the conference.  "That's such a realistic background setting - so pretty."  "Yes," said I, and changed the subject.

The rain poured, the wind blew, I appreciated my puffer jacket very much and was glad I had a waterproof laptop. I didn’t correct the people on the other side of the video link in their innocent belief that I had a very realistic and attractive parkland background. They were none the wiser and I was cold and damp and couldn’t wait to turn the camera off so that I could pull up my very unprofessional puffer jacket hood and get my bottom off the very cold metal picnic table bench and onto the comfortable chairs in the cosy public library.  By lunchtime Roger had reached the limit of his patience with the cabin's phone reception and joined me in the library, and there we stayed until close of business ejected us at 5pm.

Not that we went very far. We stood in the foyer of the public library and watched rain pour down on the streets of Temora, splashing up in sheets from the wheels of trucks and roaring in torrents down the gutters. And with this, we knew that we were no longer in South Australia, and paddled home to our final phone connection-less night in the Airfield Caravan Park.

 

Home for the night(s): Temora Airfield Caravan Park.  Just don't expect to use the phone.

*My apologies for the silly font.  Made a mistake, can't fix it, nearly bedtime,  gave up.


 


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