The Couple Who Bought The Bank

Sun Herald

Sunday January 16, 2005

By TERRY SMYTH

FROM where Chris Ware and Kristie Smiles started, it's been a slow but exciting journey to their outback guesthouse at Bourke.

Originally from Newcastle, the couple moved in the 1970s to the Mudgee district. For 10 years they lived in an alternative lifestyle community, where they and others built homes and a school in the bush and raised children.

"It was a social experiment," Ms Smiles said. "And building a house in a place where there isn't even a road teaches you to be resourceful."

Mr Ware said: "It developed a sense of community, making something bigger and better, which has helped us enormously in this particular situation. They say that one thing hippies are good at is interpersonal skills."

The couple and their three girls have travelled widely, if slowly, throughout Australia. They trained wild camels from the Northern Territory and raced them on showgrounds around the country, including at Sydney's Royal Easter Show. Later, the family crossed NSW in a camel-drawn wagon 2000kilometres at a leisurely 30 to 50kilometres a day.

Mr Ware said: "The red dirt got in our veins and we decided that one day we'd come back out here."

In 2001, in search of a new challenge, they did just that. Moving to Bourke, they took on the daunting task of renovating a derelict bank building as a home and guesthouse. They struck a deal with Bourke council that if the building was fully renovated to council specifications the title would be theirs.

The two-storey, heritage-listed former London Chartered Bank, built in 1887, was a mess. Likewise the single-storey accommodation wing, built in the 1940s as quarters for abattoir workers. The property later became a boarding house, then a backpacker hostel, but since about 1996 had been abandoned.

Mr Ware said: "There were no doors, fittings or glass in the windows. Campfires in the rooms and rubbish everywhere."

Brickwork, plaster and timberwork had been ravaged by time, water and termites, and the upper veranda had fallen off.

About $300,000 and a lot of hard yakka later, the structure has been repaired, the veranda replaced and the grand Victorian features ornate plasterwork, marble fireplaces, cast iron columns painstakingly restored.

Work is almost complete on the bank, and their Gidgee Guesthouse, affiliated with the Youth Hostels Association (YHA), is a going concern. Upstairs in the bank building is a two-bedroom family residence, while downstairs has an office, reception area and the guests' kitchen, lounge and dining room. The accommodation wing has 10 rooms and a new ablutions block.

Their advice to anyone who fancies running a guesthouse?

"Have your own space and find someone to take over for you on weekends," Mr Ware said. "Otherwise you can't get away."

"And be ready for a lot of cleaning and washing," Ms Smiles added.

© 2005 Sun Herald

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