Almanac Reviews: No Bullshit Bakeries of the Bush – A Willunga Sausage Roll
Is there a more fetching architectural feature than a bull-nosed veranda? It’s wholly inviting how it curves down to the approaching guest and beckons you inside for a cuppa and a Monte Carlo (goodness, what a biscuit). Does the sloping iron suggest submissiveness? Or on this early afternoon, a very attractively priced sausage roll? The Willunga Bakery veranda is at once confident but also modest and I wonder if this is reflective of Australia’s idealised self-image. After being overseas, a bull-nosed veranda can welcome you home with a hug just like the song Flame Trees, and then being cussed at spectacularly in a nasal twang by a dear friend.
At $3.90 I was stunned and wondered bleakly if I wasn’t still in Sco-Mo’s Australia. A quick slap to my own face and I was returned to 2025. How was the sausage roll? Pretty good. Decent size and flaky pastry. The taste was initially uncertain but finished with a pleasant zing. And which Wednesday isn’t improved by a pleasant zing? Like a member of the Barmy Army attacking a late-night kebab, I woofed it down pronto. I then remarked to myself, not unlike an English cricket tourist that my sausage roll was, ‘dead good.’ I stood proudly, allowing the flakes to fall onto the ground. Small marsupials would enjoy these tonight.
Sitting on a bench out the front of the bakery is a visual feast. The handsome pub’s across the road, promising cold Pale Ale, and clots of tourists wobble up and down the hilly street. Like a diminutive Smithsonian Institute, there’s a random but artistic assortment of objects on the bakery footpath, festooned across the walls, and dangling from the iron ceiling. I found it diverting, just like a Test match crowd after tea when the full theatrics unfold. I would never wish to use one but there’s deep aesthetic comfort in an old (are there new ones?) typewriter. Do these and Betamax video players weep together in lonely old church halls and console each other?
I love a community notice board. These are often rich texts laden with intrigue and narrative clout. Willunga’s bakery adheres to this. When was the last time you saw a sheep pose for a photo with such grace and composure? For a recently lost livestock the unflinching way it’s staring down the camera seems uncharacteristically calm and accepting of its bleating circumstances. A Current Affair could do worse than to interview this lamb. Found: Lost Dorper Lamb could be an animated Wes Anderson film, 70’s agrarian concept album or minor Roald Dahl short story. Our sheep contact and agricultural hero, ‘Margret’ has a curious name. This rare variant of ‘Margaret’ sounds Welsh and is therefore entirely appropriate for one collecting and saving stray sheep like a Fleurieu shepherdess.
In 500 words (or fewer) discuss how this image is emblematic of a small town, nostalgic Australia. Ken Done should put this on a tea-towel. Blue and white fly strips fluttering in the warm breeze. A daggy Open sign that’s rusty and worn. A bright yellow chair that’s cheerful and retro, promising no nonsense, 1950’s values inside. It’s charming and unpretentious. Stick Bill Hunter on it. If this doesn’t already exist, the photo could feature in a calendar called, No Bullshit Bakeries of the Bush.
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About Mickey Randall
Now whip it into shape/ Shape it up, get straight/ Go forward, move ahead/ Try to detect it, it's not too late/ To whip it, whip it good
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Another fine read, seasoned with the right amount of nostalgia, Mickey.
I always love a baked country bush fly on the end of my sausage roll.
I take it you are a ‘no sauce/no nonsense’ type of guy.
What is a typewriter ??
Excellent and finely observed piece MR, with the right dash of local kudos, a smidgeon of Aussie identity considerations and plenty of gentle to laugh our loud humour. Yes, I liked it a lot and not only because you won me over with your Monte Carlo praise!
The last photo of a pretty unique Aussie flyscreen reminded me of when I first landed in Melbourne 30+ years back, and why I fell in love with the place in a second. There’s a great pub in Collingwood called the Gem and when I first visited the place in the 90s had a similar fly screen in a door way between two different rooms, with an iconic picture of Jesus himself, that we had to brush open as we walked through. As an ex-ex-ex-ex Mick, I liked that a lot.
Put me down for a No Bullshit Bakeries of the Bush calendar please Mickey!
Karl – I’m fiercely no sauce and am amused when asked, ‘If I’d like sauce?’ Do people not know this already? Can you really be talked into having sauce? Are these eager bakery workers all on the take from Big Tomato?
Smokie- check with Swifty Taylor.
Rick- thanks very much. I love an Aussie flyscreen and the example in the bakery was the first one I’d seen in ages. Walking through one is a most therapeutic ritual. We should all do this once a month.
Luke – talks are continuing.
Thanks for reading and commenting.
Brilliant Mickey. Your SA stories have built a thirst for exploring the state a bit more than the walk from the Adelaide CBD to the oval which is superb mind you. The flakier the better on sausage rolls. Cheers
Thanks, Ian. Forget Adelaide Oval, it’s all about Karen Rolton Oval! A flaky pastry is good but not excessively so. Certainly, better than too oily. Give me a shout if you get over here.
Have been to that very bakery and can vouch for every word. Close enough to Adelaide, but still definably “of the bush”. Good tucker and, when I have been, good service, excellent interior atmosphere, just like the front. Finally, the bull nose verandah is certainly a Hall of Fame entrant in OZ architecture and to be applauded. Thanks for your efforts in this continuing quest for the perfect sausage roll.
Thanks Bucko. I quite like Willunga’s main drag, and the bakery is the architectural highlight and centerpiece. It’s a compelling town and reckon it’s time for me to soon return to the excellent Russel’s for pizza!
Yes, it is a bit spread out, but it retains that air of a country town. Would not need much of an excuse for you to return, methinks, although I have not tried a Russel’s pizza.
A great yarn Mickey with a highly engaging assortment of colourful references from the hungry small marsupials to the more unusual images of the typewriter/Betamax reflections and the Fleurieu shepherdess.
In fact, the latter was firmly in line for my three votes just when Bill Hunter emerged in the shadows of the post and stole them from her. Luuuved Bill Hunter! I was once told his regular pub appearance was his favourite spot at the Cricketers Bar at the Windsor. Apparently he would hold fort and have a yarn about all things Australian with pretty much anyone who wanted to rock up and share a couple of beers. Still kicking myself I never made the effort to take up this option.
RDL
I recall a Footy Almanac lunch from a few years ago when Bill Hunter was discussed in the front bar of the NFA and most in the circle had not just a signature BH story or sighting but multiple. And when it came to him being noted in a pub, simultaneous spottings of Bill on the booze suggest he was omnipresent. I guess that’s how you become a mythic figure.
Thanks, RDL. Yet again, the Fleurieu treated me well.
Love it all. Article and comments!
Thanks for that, Daryl. Hope you’re well and I’ll see you at a FA function soon!
Excellent Mickey and I’m with you definitely no sauce
Thanks Rulebook. For future bakery visits I’m thinking of wearing a shirt with this emblazed across the front: No sauce thanks.
Let’s also remember Willunga is the home of one Randall Bone who played under the captaincy of Bone McDermott.
Hi Mickey, I definitely with you and Rulebook. No sauce for me on sausage rolls or pies either for that matter.
Thanks Fisho. I reckon that ‘s sorted it! If you, Rulebook, and me are firmly in the no sauce camp.
Back in 2019 I explained the complexities of my relationship with the tomato and its varied forms.
https://www.footyalmanac.com.au/the-tomato-and-me/