The owner of Batemans Bay-based bread wholesaler Baker Dave grew up experimenting with flour, baking and eating - his favourite food is bread, of course.

"I have always loved bread," Mr Baker said, "I love that you can eat your failures."

He honed his skills in Melbourne, learning Italian patisserie at Brunetti's in Melbourne, working at Brown's Bakery before ending up as head pastry chef at Melbourne Casino.

From there, he travelled the world: San Francisco, Seattle, New York.

He landed in Iraq to fix the bread supply at USA prisoner of war center Camp Cropper near Baghdad - baking bread for nearly 200 prisoners of war every day. It wasn't glorious. He didn't take pictures, and there were definitely no hashtags.

He ended up at the mining fields in Western Australia fixing the bread supply lines feeding those working the mines. He was living in Thailand with his wife, flying in to Western Australia for work stints before returning home.

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When COVID hit, international travel restrictions locked him out of his home. He moved to the Eurobodalla to stay with his parents. When state borders were closed, Mr Baker was trapped, away from home and work, with no employment.

Throughout all this time, he has always harboured the thought, like the smallest sprinkling of yeast, he would return to running a bakery one day. It was his retirement plan. Like yeast working through the whole dough, the idea grew and grew.

He started baking a few loaves of bread again for Edward Road Market in his parent's kitchen.

"Just a little something to get some cash and fill my time," Mr Baker said. "Then it became way bigger and turned into a business."

He didn't consider he was starting his own business in the middle of the COVID pandemic, when local small businesses around the country were struggling to stay open.

"I didn't think about COVID at all," he said. "It sort of just happened."

He began supplying Tomakin-based smoke house and grill Smokey Dan's, and before he knew it, Mr Baker was a wholesaler.

The kitchen was too small, and Mr Baker transformed his parent's garage into his new workspace, repeatedly blowing fuses with the multiple electrical appliances he was running.

Baker Dave was always only a temporary thing - "until the mines reopened" - so he said.

When his father had a stroke last year, all the appeal of working abroad dissipated. He decided to stay local.

He applied himself to baking - producing 70 loaves a day, 400 bread rolls as well as cakes and sweets.

The garage was no longer big enough.

Baker Dave has just opened a kitchen in Bridge Plaza, Batemans Bay, where he becomes nocturnal to bake bread all throughout the night.

"Baking isn't easy," Mr Baker said. "It's night shifts. It is seven days a week. It is every public holiday.

"But I love it."

He hopes to one day open a bakery with a storefront, selling pies, sweets and cakes.

Mr Baker's top tip to those still honing their sourdough starters?

Time and temperatures are the two most important factors.

"You have to know how to handle it and how it feels - when it is too tight and too slack," he said.