Grocery shopping then and now.

Our local grocery store in Thargomindah.

Standing in the line at the checkout of a major supermarket recently I couldn’t help but compare the lack of service to times long gone by.  There I was with three other customers in front of me, only 1 other manned (womaned) checkout open because most of the well programmed customers were checking out their own groceries at the do it yourself checkouts.  All those jobs lost just so the supermarket can trim a bit more off its operating cost.

Compare this to the service that we experience from our little local towns.  I can ring or email my grocery order through to my local store whether it  be in Quilpie, Thargomindah or Cunnamulla and the staff will collect all my stuff, pack it properly in boxes ( yes boxes! ) and either tape them up or tie the boxes up with string and send them to me via my mail man twice a week.  The bottles will be wrapped in paper, the fruit and veg will also be wrapped to protect them as will any cold articles I order.  It is generally speaking a pretty good service. For my part, I keep the string and the nice white paper used to wrap the fruit and sometimes have a bit of a read of the newspaper that has been used to pack the bottles!

Thinking back to when I was a little kid growing up at Eight Mile Plains in Brisbane (which was the sticks back then!) we had a little shopping centre within walking distance of my home, bush all around us and even a creek at the bottom of the hill where we could catch yabbies.  Milk, the newspaper and bread was delivered to our house daily and anything else we needed was purchased from the local shop.  The lady would ring the item costs up on the till and a boy at the other end of the counter would pack the stuff in a big, solid brown paper bag and put it in the car for us.  Mum had a big drawer that was used for keeping all the bags, bits of string, rubber bands and the occasional plastic bag for recycling – even though I bet she didn’t call it that!

The thriving town of Thargomindah on the Bulloo River.

The new VIC, Library, conference center and Coffee Shop in Thargomindah

Thargo just never seems to look back, its workforce works mainly for the local council or one other entrepreneurial business in town and it’s a little town that just keeps growing and growing in both size and population.

The streets get bigger, the footpaths get wider, more and more lovely little houses get built, there are 2 caravan parks, a pub, a motel and restaurant, the community centre, a Toyota dealership, a roadhouse and lots of other businesses.

The new Administation building is taking shape in Thargomindah

 

And now the Bulloo Shire is building a new Administration building and has just recently completed the new visitor information centre, library and coffee shop.  Another 25 blocks of land are also to be developed and put up for public tender in the near future.

Coffee shop for Thargo

It is an interesting town where visitors can see lots of dogs, horses, some nice old buildings, a demonstration at the older town bore, have a great coffee at the new shop OR one of the best burgers you’ll ever eat at Fergies Roadhouse!  The locals are generally friendly and helpful, showing typical outback hospitality to nice visitors.

A great feature of the town is also the colourful display of flowers in the middle of the streets and around some of the buildings.

The visitor info centre has plenty of comfy chairs!

The VIC is a bit light on for info still but I was told they are waiting for some more shelving to arrive so as to put more stuff out.  A little observation from me, the girls at this new center were lovely and obliging but they all would look soo much better in some sort of uniform! NOT cut off jeans, T shirts and thongs.  Just a bit smarter to reflect their surroundings.