Brand New Information!

25th January 2003

Local "Messenger" Newspaper

While the "Messenger" has been delivered to the residents' post boxes for the past two weeks, Management feels that a similar practice should apply to other sites operated by Warrina Homes, where the local paper is delivered directly to residents' front doors. Warrina Homes will be taking this up with Messenger Newspapers, so watch for a change in procedure.

Not so New Information

9th January 2003

South Australian Ambulance Service people are on site interviewing residents prior to the installation of Call Direct system which will be installed Friday and Saturday of next week.

"Call Direct" is a product of the South Australian Ambulance Service. The service is provided through Warrina Homes and the charges are included in the fortnighly residents' fees. Very good value for money. The only requirement is that residents subscribe to the ambulance cover of an approved health fund, or the ambulance service's own contributions scheme.

Your webmaster is currently talking to several potential commercial sponsors of this website, whose advertising will of necessity be low key and unintrusive. That should then permit email addresses and personal webspace of a higher technical standard.

Currently the Community Centre car park is being kerbed prior to surfacing. Eventually access from Reservoir Road will be improved, but this of course involves the Highways Department and the City of Tea Tree Gully as well.

Local "Messenger" Newspaper
Would you believe the "Messenger" wasn't delivered on Wednesday 8th. However, their Circulation Department assures us that the local distribution manager will come and inspect the site, and then have delivery arranged in time for next Wednesday, 15th January. Don't hold your breath!

35 have been ordered - 34 for residences, plus one for the Community Centre

24th December 2002
Will is back from a week's well earned leave. The works and services people are working through the traditional "Christmas/New Year shutdown" period as they stagger their leave over the 52 weeks. Ross has gone on several weeks leave this year. We take this opportunity to observe an important safety aspect of the site...

As Homestead have now left and the internal roads have now been sealed, and the shortcut through the Community Centre's car park has been closed off with the preparing of its parking area with dolomite and crushed rock, it is a timely opportunity to remind our visitors that the direction of travel round the Community centre is in an anti-clockwise direction only for safety reasons.

Parking on the roadways by visitors should also be discouraged for the same reasons, as the roads are only wide enough for single lane traffic; passing is tricky if not impossible, and parking at the ends of the roads will prevent others from turning their cars around, and delivery vehicles from making their deliveries.

In the new year it is expected that "occasional" parking bays will be built - but not until after the landscaping has been completed. After all works involving heavy vehicles are finished, direction arrows will be painted on the roadways; in the mean time, however, temporary signs may need to be erected in order to avoid risk of collision and damage to people and property.

Local "Messenger" Newspaper
Effective January 8th - the date of the next issue - 35 copies should be delivered, hopefully to the Community Centre, but maybe initially just inside the gate!

 

General Information

Friendly local (Hope Valley) shops

Hope Valley actually has three compact shopping centres, shown in orange on the map below... click to see a larger image.

The main centre is opposite to the Lutheran Retirement Village, and next door to the Bremen Hotel, almost on the corner of Grand Junction Road and Valley Road.



Right on the corner is the Shell Service Station (shown in purple) - which quite often has the lowest petrol price in the area.

There are two other smaller shopping centres, one on the other side of the road, to the east and just past the Uniting Church, and the other to the west, on the corner of Kennington Road and Grand Junction Road.

The types of shops in these centres are a privately owned Foodland Supermarket which offers really excellent service including home delivery, two butchers, take-away foods, post office and newsagency, Birks 7-day pharmacy (which offers a discount to Health Partners card-holders), bakery, computer sales and repairs, dry cleaning and laundromat, ladies and mens' hairdressing - in fact all the usual sorts of shop... there is absolutely no need to visit Westfield with its enormous internal walking distances, and humungous parking hassles.

Hope Valley Chicken Bar and Seafood (8263 5590) is known locally for its support of many things in the community, not the least being us local people who are able to collect pre-ordered cooked poultry on Christmas Day (December 25th) before 12 noon. Orders can be placed with them at any time for collection - they do a range of meals apart from chicken and seafood.

 

Introduce yourself to Gretchen in Foodland and say where you are from.

Hope Valley Foodland does home deliveries.

If you go there and personally select what you want, the charge is $2.80. This service is available Tuesdays to Fridays until 4pm.

They will also put together phoned orders, and this works on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, for phone calls placed between 9am and midday; for this there is a slightly higher charge of $5.00.

Late trading is until 9pm on thusdays, and all day until 5pm on Saturdays.

Contact is by telephone to 8263 5122.

 

Almost opposite the Uniting Church is a dental technician business, and there is a quite large medical centre opposite where Tolley Road joins Grand Junction Road. This is an amalgamation of two sizeable practices.

Hope Valley Foodland have now opened a garden store almost next door in the same shopping complex, next to the hairdressers (where the doctors' consulting rooms used to be). Visit them between 10am and 5pm Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays.

 

Kelly's Farm (Modbury Triangle)

If you head north from the village, and avoid the Plaza, you can shop in the Modbury Triangle Shops (previously known as Kelly's Farm) which include a Bi-Lo supermarket, bakery, pharmacy, video rental store, and more of the usual shops. Also Freedom Furniture and a jeweller, and the only known shoe repair business remaining in the North-East. They are shown in orange at the top left corner of the map below.

Motor registration and Social Security offices are nearby, as are Adelaide Bank, Commonwealth Bank, National Australia Bank, Westpac Bank, a Credit Union, Kentucky Fried Chicken, McDonalds...



To the right (east) on Smart Road are the Modbury Hospital (which includes Gribbles pathology) and then further down the road several speciallists' offices, the further block containing Clinpath pathology. These are all shown in blue on the map above.

IMVS pathology is on Lower North-East Road at Highbury, next to the Family Practice Unit (GPs and speciallists) of the University of Adelaide.

Inside Tea Tree Plaza are two more Credit Unions (and yet another next door in Tea Tree Plus), and on Smart Road just east of the hospital is the Bank of South Australia.

The other good price petrol outlet is the Ampol on the corner of Montague and North East Roads, opposite Tea Tree Plus.

 

St. Agnes Shops

St. Agnes boasts a larger shopping centre than Hope Valley, and a car park where there is seldom difficulty in finding a space even when really busy.

It is considerably further away, to the east, along North-East Road, but it is served by both the Serco and the special council-run Green Line buses - which also serve the retirement villages of the community. Hopefully the Green Line community buses will call at Warrina Valley in due course.

 

Fancy a Meal?

If you'd like a mid-day during the week, or an evening meal on late shopping nights (Thursdays), the webmaster thoroughly recommends 42^nd Street Café just inside the Post Office entrance to Tea Tree Plaza.

Introduce yourself to Peter or Mary Rogers (mine hosts) and tell them that Richard sent you. They will be sure to double your bill!!!

 

Spring Water delivery

Several vendors of bottled water deliver in the area. Mount Lofty Springs deliver to the webmaster's house on Tuesdays, late morning or early afternoon. If you would like him to call on you, you are welcome to leave a message at house 16.

We believe that Piccadilly may deliver on a Wednesday if asked. We suggest that you look up other vendors up in the Yellow Pages.

 

Car Wash

Until the car wash is up and running in the Community Centre, you may find that the nearest wash (on North-East Road) is convenient. There are two, next to each other, both on the northern side of the road, one being the BP Petrol Station on the corner of Wright Road. Sometimes specials are on offer.

 

Bottle Shops

There are several. Nearest is the one at the Bremen Hotel on Grand Junction Road, opposite the Lutheran Village, to the west of the main Hope Valley shops.

Another is at the Modbury Hotel, corner Reservoir Road and North-East Road.

If you are prepared to look for a car park in the Plaza, there is one there by the Woolworths entrance, but close parking is almost impossible. You would do better at the St. Agnes shops if you prefer not to use a hotel facility. Meals at the Modbury and the Bremen used to be excellent quality, and cheap at lunch-time, but the webmaster hasn't eaten there for several years, and both have been refurbished since his last visit. Catering at the Tea Tree Gully and the Highbury hotels is good - and reasonably priced.

 

Bottled Gas

Should your gas-powered BBQ on your nice new outdoor entertainment area need a refill, Shell at Hope Valley has facilities for refilling gas bottles. It is possible that BP Modbury and Ampol Modbury might also, but it is difficult to get to or from both of those stations because of the road design and the lack of gaps in the central median between the north-bound and south-bound carriageways.

 

Car Repairers

The webmaster's favourite is Highbury Auto Service and Repairs, on the city side of the Highbury Hotel on Lower North-East Road. Joe Mussolino and his team do a great job.
8264 2380.
Having lived in the area for approaching 20 years, you tend to try everyone until you get someone you can trust and who you find reliable..

 

Industrial Businesses

There is a large number of industrial type businesses along Smart Road and Tolley Road on the north-western side of the intersection of those two roads. Also in the south western corner of the Modbury Triangle shopping area..

 

Postal Services

The Hope Valley (5090) Post Office is in the same block of shops as Hope Valley Foodland. It is what used to be called an "unofficial" Post Office and is combined with the Hope Valley Newsagency. Service is very much faster here than at the major Post Office in the region because of a relatively larger staff and fewer customers, and the opening hours are much longer, because it is open when the newsagency is open.

There is, of course, the Modbury (5092) Post Office at Tea Tree Plaza, located on the upper level, served by the entrance opposite the Modbury Hospital. Although actual staffing levels are much higher there, the queue lengths are incredibly long, and at times people are seen to give up and come back later because of long delays in service.

A tip - Peter and Mary Rogers' 42nd Street Café is next door, and they provide excellent service, but don't sell stamps and weigh parcels!

Post Office Boxes are available (should you want one) at Modbury and Hope Valley from time to time. The webmaster has rented PO Box 754, Modbury since 1987.

Postal delivery to the Warrina Valley Estate has commenced. This includes parcels delivery also.

The on-site deliveries are directly into the residents' letter boxes located to the right of the front doors into the Community Centre, and your box is accessed by the funny shaped smaller key on your key ring. Please note; the number stamped on the key is NOT your house number.

There are two special boxes as well... one is cleared by a Warrina Homes staff member at the end of each working day that they are on site, and is for regular outgoing mail you have stuck a stamp on to. This saves your having to walk out into the street (particularly after dark), and go hunting for one of those red boxes with white writing. However, if you feel like an "evening constitutional", there is one on the same side of reservoir Road as the estate is... about half way to Grand Junction Road.

The other box is for stuff you want to send to Warrina Homes via its own staff courier system (which is often likely to be the same one who clears the outgoing mail box) - and these obviously do not need to be stamped

 

Garbage and Recycleables collection;
put them out late sunday nights/early monday mornings

The City of Tea Tree Gully pioneered the weekly collection of items suitable for recycling. This was after the election of several councillors following the establishment of the HEART project, Highbury Environs Against Refuse Tips (Incorporated) about eight years ago.

Local residents succesfully pushed the Council and the State Government's Department of the Environment (and its Environmental Protection Agency) into preventing a multinational company disguised as an Australian one from further exploiting hills face land; they wanted to create an enormous garbage dump the size of Football Park from a very profitable large hole in the ground that they had finished mining out.

The TTG Council has an orange instruction card which they have supplied to residents along with the recycling crate. Please read it, and if you would like further information, we are looking at making available a short portion of a documentary about the proposed CSR dump at the time of the residents' fight.

Two documentaries were made for Adelaide television by the webmaster and a colleague. These helped sway public opinion and politicians towards a more responsible attitude about waste management. The segment we are considering copying features the then President of HEART (who was a Channel Nine executive) discussing with the interviewer exactly how, why and what to put into the recycling crate.

 

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This is YOUR website... the webmaster is open to suggestions for it.
You can visit him at House 16, telephone either 8396 0440 or 0412 795 400, or email him at webmaster@warrinavalley.freehosting.net.