UNTOLD: WHAT IS OPAL FEVER?
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UNTOLD: WHAT ARE THE CHANCES OF FINDING LOVE IN A TOWN OF FIVE PEOPLE?
20 MAY 2024
From the outside, the town of Parachilna looks to be nothing more than a smattering of dwellings, a rusting windmill and a pub that casts a shadow toward the highway. But behind the historic façade of the Prairie Hotel, hundreds of little love stories are being written.
The idea of ‘the one’ has been weaved into the creases and folds of history books since time itself began – but finding ‘the one’ in a town of just five people, in the outback of Australia? Needle, meet haystack.
When Ellie Gorringe embarked on her outback pilgrimage, she was searching for something. Fossicking for a purpose – perhaps even herself. What did she find? Love. There’s a quote, ‘life is one big love story with hundreds of little love stories within it’.
This ‘One Big Love Story’ takes place at a grand old watering hole in remote South Australia – the Prairie Hotel. While the Prairie Hotel has a well-documented history, its publicans needed someone to come along, pick up the pen and keep writing the love story.
If this story had a foreword, it would read; for anyone who has fallen in love when it was least convenient, in the most unlikely of places.
Meet Ellie Gorringe and Lachy Fargher
What’s in Parachilna?
“I remember watching [the GPS],” Ellie muses. “The address of the Prairie is [the] corner of High Street and West Terrace and we're watching the minutes count down. [The GPS says] in 10 minutes, turn on to High Street. I was thinking ‘[it might] not be in the middle of nowhere!’
“So I drove in, parked and I was like, ‘okay, so it’s just the pub that's in Parachilna.’ ”
It was 2018, Ellie was just 21 and asking herself “what am I going to do with my life? … I’ve dropped out of uni [sic], I want to break up with [my then boyfriend], what am I going to do?” With no road signs guiding her way, Ellie took a shot in the dark and headed north, toward the iconic Flinders Ranges - the Prairie Hotel standing proud on the horizon like a lighthouse.
When I first came here, I'd never felt more myself than when I was here. And [I] was just like, ‘this is where I need to be, this is where I belong.’ Ellie Gorringe
Ellie Gorringe
Ellie’s Eat Pray Love looked like a six-week stint working behind a weathered front bar - in a town of just five people, two streets and one pub. But she loved it. “People wanted to know everything about me, and I wanted to know everything about everyone, because I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life!” she laughs. “That's what really got me - I loved having conversations with people.” Ellie would meet the matriarch of this tiny town - Jane Fargher - during her first week on the job. Jane is a formidable character. A South Australian icon, Jane has the kind of name that – if mentioned in bustling front bars or along dusty roadsides in outback Australia – people immediately know who you are talking about. Why? She single-handedly turned a 147-year-old hotel from a forgotten scratch on the map, into one of the most successful country pubs in Australia.
I think country people are the best kind. Ellie Gorringe
“I remember chatting to her in the kitchen,” Ellie recalls of their fateful first meeting. “I just remember her asking me about myself and wanting to know, ‘what do you want to do?’ … I was so intimidated by Jane!” But Jane saw something in Ellie, perhaps a piece of herself – the sharp eyes, warm embrace and the kind of smile that draws guests in and wraps them up like a woollen blanket. “…It was really busy one day, and Jane … watched me working. I remember her saying to me, ‘it's like you've been here forever,’” Ellie recalls. “When I first came here, I'd never felt more myself than when I was here. And [I] was just like, ‘this is where I need to be, this is where I belong.’" If there are hundreds of little love stories, this was Ellie’s first – she had fallen in love with an unlikely place.
Growing up in South Australia’s smallest town
While Ellie found a sense of belonging by arriving on the doorstep of this forgotten town – Jane’s son, Lachy Fargher, never lost it. He was born of this place. “There’s been a lot of times I've been in Adelaide, where I've felt a lot more alone than being here, that's for sure,” Lachy shares of his remote hometown. Lachy recalls coming home from boarding school only to work behind the bar, or in the dish bay – before knocking off to watch the sunset over the dusty plains of their nearby Nilpena station. “I’ve grown up at a young age talking to people a lot older than me, and that’s probably helped me [be] who I am now,” he says.
So it came as no surprise when, at 17-years-old, he undertook his traineeship behind his bar. But he was nowhere to be seen when Ellie first rolled into town – he was busy completing his brewing course in Adelaide. He too was in search of something, he just never found it (or, perhaps, her), in the big city. “Here’s always home for me and, I don’t know, it’s such a special place,” he says. "[You are] made to feel part of a family, or community … I think the country is just that. Always someone’s out to help, someone's out to have a chat.
Lachy Fargher
A love story set in the Flinders Ranges
The pub had held his memory within its walls, waiting for him to return. Despite her never having met Lachy before, he felt almost familiar to Ellie, the pair's paths crossing when he returned home toward the end of her initial stint behind the bar. “We’re always very drawn to each other,” she says, glancing over at Lachy to offer him a small smile. “Our stories are different on this, because I knew. I openly told Lachy this all the time … the moment I met Lachy I was like, ‘this is it’. Like ‘[this is] the moment’.
Ellie and Lachy pictured at home, the Prairie Hotel
But, Lachy was busy doing “a lot of soul searching” when their paths first crossed – he wasn’t looking for a collision. Yet, there was just something about Ellie. The way he would smile at her smile, or how her laugh cracks like the wood of a warm fire. His love for her was inevitable.
the Prairie Hotel
“(But) then I didn't think that she would necessarily come back to Parachilna… after six weeks in,” he explains sheepishly. “Not knocking Parachilna, but for anyone who … [can] see themselves living in Parachilna … you're kind of like ‘this person is really, really in for the long haul’.” Parachilna has a charm though – he just needed someone to notice it glimmering between the surrounding ranges. Ellie saw its glint. “I would happily live here for the rest of my life, and not everyone could say that,” she says.
“I don't think that it's for everyone. But it has definitely been for me, and for us. “Some of the funnest [sic] nights of my life have been here (in Parachilna)!” While Ellie might not be from Parachilna, she is of it - because she gets that a place is nothing without the people in it. “That’s what drew me in here,” she says. “You have time to have conversations with people.”
If you have enough conversations with people … they always have a story … and then all of a sudden…some of the people that we've met here will end up being friends for the rest of our lives. Ellie Gorringe
Lachy and Ellie
What's in a name?
Ellie is now part of the Fargher family in all but name – and what’s in the Fargher family name, if not the future of the Prairie? Talking around the lump quickly forming in her throat, Ellie shares that her “first priority within this business, always, is the Fargher family legacy”. “And the 'Prairie Way' that was instilled in me by Jane, before we [her and Lachy] were together,” she says through tears. “It’s a special thing, the Prairie Way, and how you do things and how you treat your customers.” When asked how she would define what the ‘Prairie Way’ is (a term any Prairie stalwart has heard), Ellie quotes Jane’s husband ‘Roscoe,’ sharing that he always explains it as “no matter if you're up here, or if you're down there, everyone at the Prairie … is treated the same.” It’s a fortunate coincidence Lachy found himself in love with someone more passionate about preserving his own family’s legacy than perhaps even himself, admitting that it “might have been one of [his mum's] chess pieces going in [to place]”.
An outback legacy
“There’s always been discussions over the years of, you know, do you want to manage this place? And I went ‘not a chance,’” Lachy admits. “To me, that’s not what I see myself doing, or working as hard for. [But] I’d also be sad if the place went to someone else.” But when COVID-19 struck, Lachy’s past and future collided – his home, the Prairie, closed its doors indefinitely. Sat around the tired old bar as the world outside screeched to a halt, Ellie recalls Jane asking the pair something like ‘if you could do anything with this place, what would you do?’.
“I remember sitting in the bar, and surely you must have been like ‘imagine if there was a brewery somewhere in here’,” Ellie recalls. “Yeah, I think I said it as a little bit of a joke,” Lachy laughs. But Jane wasn’t kidding when she gave her blessing to the pair – who wasted no time planning a renovation of the historic establishment. The family built South Australia’s most remote brewery (fittingly named the ‘Parachilna Brew Project’) in a bid to bring their tiny town from a dot to a landmark on the map. “When we first tapped your beers (in 2022), being able to [say] ‘we made this … Fargher family owned, Fargher family brewed,’ this is what we're doing … it was one of the most rewarding things I've ever done in my life,” Ellie says of pouring Lachy a pint of his own beer, from the Prairie’s taps.
We understand that [what we are doing] it's different, but I want people to be accepting of us moving forward … we're moving into the next generation, into the next era, [but] the bones of the Prairie - and the story of the Prairie - remain the same."
Hundreds of little love stories
A person called Ram Charan said that life is one big love story with hundreds of little love stories within it. Ellie will likely never meet this person, but their words – while spoken a world away – perfectly summarise what Ellie would discover, when she ventured into the Australian outback.
They also speak to what Ellie is still yet to collect – a future of little love stories. “I hope that [in 20 years’ time] mine and Lachy's relationship almost mirrors Jane and Ross,” Ellie says, blinking back tears. Parachilna will always be the backdrop to her One Big Love Story – but she’s hoping she and Lachy will write a sequel; “we will have kids in 20 years’ time. There will be more Farghers!” she laughs.
But for now, Ellie can be found bustling between tables, inside a historic old stone building, plonked on one of two streets - the lone landmark of Parachilna. When you make it out there, you’ll ask her for the house brew. Her neck will be adorned with her latest paisley print scarf, her grin washing over her expression like the tide, as she pours hundreds of her little love stories into a pint glass.
