A Queensland town’s hub pub is fighting on and back, after a huge storm hit the tiny town and crashed nearly half the pub, late last year.
A night of drinking and offer of an interest-free loan led to old mates Tom Auriac and Grant Champion buying the pub in the in the town of Stonehenge in 2021.
A week before Christmas, winds of up to 96 kilometres per hour ripped through the town and the pub’s roof. Around 40 per cent of the building was damaged and the kitchen flooded, as a large section of roof was stripped and tossed 50 metres.
The men were both out of town at the time, and returned to “a shit storm”.
The Hotel is essential to the town of only 50 residents, found over 200 kilometres south-west of Brisbane. It serves as a fuel station, post office, general store and motel, with caravan park – and point of contact in emergencies for the Royal Flying Doctor Service.
Volunteers travelled to Stonehenge the following day to execute temporary repairs, ahead of another anticipated storm, which struck just as the team finished patching the roof with whatever could be found around town that might keep out the rain.
Regional pubs around Australia are finding problems with insurance, facing major price increases or being denied outright.
The prohibitive cost is proving a barrier, and the Stonehenge was mostly uninsured.
But the owners have pledged they won’t be closing, as repair work and renovations continue, paid for by them.
Expressing its status as “a lifeline”, Auriac says the pub will continue providing accommodation and serving food and cold beer to all comers.
A fundraising campaign has so far raised $12k to re-raise Stonehenge.
