It is mid morning at the Bulga Bridge Café in the Hunter Valley 200km north of Sydney. For the past half an hour customers, mainly workmen in high visibility vests, have been dropping into the general store to buy a snack or something for lunch.
The store’s owners, Mike and Toni Silk, would like to see that trickle of customers turn into a flood, but they realise that is not likely because of the tough times facing the local coal industry.
“We used to get lots of contractors coming down from the mines but that was before the downturn,” says Mrs Silk.
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