Temperature's rising: chance to live and work in hottest place in state

After just reclaiming its place as the hottest ever place in NSW in September, Wanaaring is set to lose the family who run the local store, deliver the mail, provide the petrol and of course, take the temperature.

Ben and Margaret Strong and their daughter Ashlee are pulling up stumps after 13 years of working seven days a week at the Wanaaring Caravan Park and Store by  the Paroo river, which is now after a dry winter  more like Paroo trickle.

So what would you be up for if you buy the going concern in a town of 80 people where summer temperatures rarely fall below  40 degrees celsius ?

This is how Ben describes the extreme day last Saturday when Wanaaring briefly lost its mantle to Wilcannia as the hottest ever place in NSW in September, with winds blowing up to 60km/h :

“It was like being in a fan forced oven.”

But Ben says going on summer temps around 45 degrees or more, “it wasn’t such a bad day. It certainly gave us a taste of summer.”

Luckily the Strongs have  large generators to back-up their store if the heat causes a blackout.  The Strongs have worked like Trojans around Wanaaring for more than a decade, a lovely spot on the Paroo, where the local beekeeper is also the local mechanic.

Everyone has multiple jobs and the Strongs are no different. Each morning just before 9am Ben or Margaret walk out to the Bureau of Meteorology white box that sits in their backyard and record the maximum and minimum temperatures from the screen, inspecting the dry bulb and the wet bulb, walk back to the laptop inside their 132-year-old home and send the data through to the Bureau. They used to do two weather recordings a day but this was cut back to one. So when the highest temperature in NSW on Wednesday was recorded as Delta at 41.3 degrees, a new September record, no one knew Wanaaring was the hottest place at 41.4 as the figure hadn’t come through yet. It was actually 41.5 according to Ben, who sent that temperature through, but the Bureau on its website has revised it down to 41.4.

Anyway, Wanaaring has its hottest September town mantle back. It’s not unsual to be hot. “It’s quite often we are the hottest in the state,” says Ben. 

For Ben it’s business as usual until the shop and park is sold. He’s taking offers on the phone and just working out who are the tyre kickers and who are the real buyers.

Meanwhile, he does his 350km twice weekly mail run heading up such remote roads as Gardenvale or The Cut Line, delivering everything from stock feed to christmas presents and just “anything that fits” on the back of his Landcruiser ute.

The Strongs are heading back to Queensland after originally coming from Cairns, and before that Weipa. “We’re Queenslanders,” Ben proudly says from his NSW hotspot.

And guess what happened on Thursday after Wanaaring  became the hottest NSW September place again ? It rained ! And the temperature was a very pleasant 24 degrees - so there is relief for anyone wanting to take on the hot seat.