Sconeite Snippet: Peter Barnett

PETER John Barnett was born in Quirindi but spent much of his holidays as a child with his dad shearing around Moonan, when he said “this place was covered in sheep, but when the dingos moved in the sheep sort’a moved out.”

“This was dad’s favourite pub, I used to sit up there, eat a packet of chips and have a fire engine,” he said.

Peter now runs the Victoria Hotel in Moonan with his partner Kathy Hannaford and with a personality that is a cross between Mick Dundee and a hippy, he is made for running the historic bush pub.

“I enjoyed the lifestyle, there were no microwaves back then, no party pies or quiches, there was just mutton and more mutton,” he said.

“I’ve got a menagerie out the back, heaps of chooks, I breed Belgium bantams and white Sussex and I’ve got guinea fowl and ducks, a donkey and an old race horse.

“We bought the horse for $3,000 and he won $648,000, his name is With a Chance, he got horse of the year and he made us sort of half famous from the bush,” he said.

“We used to go to Rosehill and Randwick every fortnight and he was a special horse and he’s just out the back now,” he said.

“City kids now pat him and give him a bit of bread,” said Peter.

Peter worked shearing sheep, on the railway for 30 years, at the vets, in horticulture and his last stop before buying the pub was working in aged care.

“It was good working with the old bushies at the nursing home, I’d shower them and that and I could talk to them about the old days, trapping rabbits,” he said.

“They could relate to the way I was brought up, sometimes it was a bit tough when I was younger, sometimes we’d have to go out and trap rabbits and I’d be pulling wool off dead sheep and sell it, crows would be there trying to pick their eyes out and we’d have to shoo them away.

“I was able to settle them down when they were a bit up tight, so they put me through nursing and the hardest thing was going to TAFE with 22 girls, but I got through it,” he said.

With no background in running a pub Peter said buying one was daunting, but he found his way and said the pub is all about making it better for the people who use it; travellers from over the range, over the seas and especially the locals.

“I came out here for a dirty weekend and we saw the pub was for sale, it’d been for sale for about seven years and the owners wife got sick and it was either he had to close the pub or me and Kathy could look after the pub and I’d never poured a beer in my life,” said Peter.

“I thought lemon lime and bitters was a cocktail, ‘cause I had no idea, I owned the pub for a month before I was game enough to come in here, it was all really daunting because I didn’t want to disappoint anybody,” he said.

“The first time I did come in here I was standing in the bar and like 20 sheilas from Ellerston pull up to come in here and they were like from all over the world, so I got behind the beer taps ready to pour beer and not one of them wanted a beer!

“They all wanted cocktails and this and that and I started to get the cocktail book out because I’d never made one in my life and they were saying ‘no Pete this is how you do it’, so I just learnt from there, they helped me out,” he said.

“We’ve made lots of friends, met people from all over the world, because the Barringtons is heritage listed and we have great meals here and the rooms are nice and tidy, you’ve got 50 k’s to Scone or 90 to Gloucester so we’re pretty well booked most of the time.

“And when we think it’s slow and it’s safe to go outside it snows and we get thousands of people from everywhere that want to come in and get warm and the kids want chips and gravy and then mum and dad have a few rums and hear it’s going to snow again overnight, so they stay overnight and there’s not a toothbrush amoungst them so we try and help them out as much as we can you know.

“During the day it can be quiet unless there are some travellers, everybody here is employed but when they get out of the saddle and put the chainsaw down they come on down, but they don’t have Dolly Parton type jobs, it’s not 9 to 5, it’s not until dark that they come in, so we try and stay open for them.

“I only own the pub and they’ve been drinking here all their life, so every improvement I make I make people feel it is for them, without them I’ve got nothing,” he said.

“And we’ve never been let down, people around here are good, usually it comes back ten-fold and people come back.

“The Devil Park is really good for us, we’ve got a devil and named her after the pub, Victoria, and that gives me brownie points to go up there and throw a few kangaroos around for them.

“And when Dean and his partner got married, well engaged, ‘cause they’re batting for the other side, you know we went to their engagement and it was the best turn out we’ve ever been to.

“Everyone said when we came back ‘what was it like at the blue oyster bar?’ ‘were the Village people there’, but it was just so great and I’d rather have gay guys for neighbours than agro people.

“It was all dancing and everyone had a good time, no fights or anything, it was great to be amongst it all.

“I like talking to people, I like to know about people on the other side of the world, like their language and that and they like me ‘cause they reckon I’ve got a language of my own,” said Peter.

There are still many more adventures Peter has planned, including tackling his fear of the ocean.

“I’d like to go on a trawler because I’ve got this fear of the ocean because everything bites and stings and cuts and seahorses even kick they reckon, I don’t know whether they do or not, but I’d like to do some prawn trawling,” he said.

“I’d just like to go for a drive somewhere for six months and find a nice little spot, have me own milk, live simple and take it easy, I don’t want to be the richest man in the cemetery I just want to enjoy the twilight years, lots of things still to do.

“I’d like to stay here a while and then find a spot up north, maybe half an hour from the ocean, hinterland somewhere with a tidal river to catch some mud crabs and have a garden.

“Make things and take them to the markets and do all the bartering like they did in the old days and not have all this head tormenting stuff you have to go through today to get something,” said Peter Barnett.

For now though you can still find Peter at the Moonan pub, checking on the chooks, pottering in the garden, telling yarns and being the perfect custodian of a pub that also has a colourful past.