Wednesday, 2 October 2024
I forgot to mention that as we walked to dinner last night, we walked past a front garden with a cat on the path between the footpath and the front door. Nothing unusual about that but then we noticed that the cat was sharing its front yard with four juvenile kangaroos! As we were walking across the front of the property a lady came out with a bag of feed for the kangaroos, so we chatted with her a bit about her wildlife rescue work. Very interesting.
This morning, we took a leisurely walk around Bourke to admire the town’s historic buildings. Despite being underwhelmed yesterday by Cobar’s Heritage Walk we decided to give it a go and we were pleasantly surprised to find that many of Bourke’s historic buildings remain. Although some were no longer being used for their original purpose it was lovely to see the handsome buildings have been retained and repurposed. The London Bank building was an outstanding example of Victorian commercial architecture that has been repurposed as a guest house, and the Court House was a beautiful example of the colonial architectural style dating to 1900. The building is a Maritime Court that is still the furthest inland Maritime Court in Australia.
After our walk around town, we made our way out to the Back O’ Bourke Information & Exhibition Centre to make our way through the exhibition. The exhibition took us on an informative journey from Bourke’s early exploration, the riverboat era, the pastoral industry to poets inspired by their experiences in the outback (Henry Lawson and others), the bushrangers and the heroes Fred Hollows and Nancy Bird whose efforts improved the health of outback residents.
After lunch we drove to the other side of the Darling River to complete the Maritime Trail where we saw the remains of the paddle boat steamer, the P.S. Wave, that was stranded in the 1929 floods. A series of interpretative boards provided us with a wealth of information about Bourke’s maritime history and the exploration of outback NSW by Captain Charles Sturt and Major Thomas Mitchell. The trail ended at a point opposite the replica of the original wharf that was built in 1898, to load wool and other goods aboard the paddle steamers. Having stood atop the wharf this morning it was interesting to be able to see the height of the structure from the other side of the river.
We drove back into town to the Percy Hobson Mural which adorns Bourke’s water tank. The mural was completed in April 2021 by Lightning Ridge artist, John Murray with assistance from local artists, Brian Smith and Bobby Barret, together with Melbourne street artist, Lucas Kasper and a crew of local young indigenous artists. The mural honors Bourke’s Commonwealth gold medalist, Percy Hobson. Percy was the first Aboriginal to win a Commonwealth Games medal with his 2.11 (6’11” at the time in 1962) High Jump.
With several hours of daylight remaining Bernie and I drove back out to the Information Centre to purchase a permit to drive to the summit of Mt Oxley. With our paperwork completed and the code to open the access gate provided we drove east on the Kamilaroi Highway to the Tarcoon Road turn off.
About four kilometres in we turned right towards the grazing property on which Mt Oxley is located. Another three kilometres and we were able to use the code to open the padlock on the gate to continue along the road to the base of the mountain. The road to the summit is a single-track road so the last section was a little scary worrying about whether we would encounter another vehicle coming down.
Phew, we made it to the top without encountering another vehicle! We wandered around the top of the mountain which is covered in loose rocks. It looked as if the top of the mountain had been quarried at some stage but apparently these stone ‘craters’ are naturally occurring, but no-one has been able to explain how they have formed. The first non-indigenous man to describe the craters was Charles Sturt who arrived at Mt Oxley in December 1828 calling the strange rock formation rising from the otherwise flat landscape the Oxley Tablelands.
There were several vehicles atop the mountain, the occupants of which were settling in to watch the sunset and camp overnight. It would have been lovely to stay for the sunset, but we were nervous about driving back down the steep, single-track road after sunset and arriving back in Bourke after dark. If we had the swag on top of the truck on this trip I suppose with some foresight and planning, we could have camped on top of the mountain to see the sunset AND the sunrise tomorrow too?! It doesn’t matter how much planning we do, there’s always another experience we could have tried. Not to worry the afternoon views over the surrounding countryside were worth the drive.
Back in Bourke we decided to head over the river to the Northy Back O’ Bourke Hotel for dinner. We rang to ask about being picked up by their courtesy bus but, unfortunately, they were short-staffed tonight and didn’t have anyone to drive the bus. Cathy stepped up to play chauffeur and drive us to the Northy. First established in 1890, the iconic Northy was destroyed by fire in 2010 but rebuilt in 2022.
