Tuesday, 1 October 2024
After a comfortable night at the Hillston Motor Inn on High – comfy bed, great rain shower – we loaded our gear back into the truck for the next leg on our road trip. As we were packing the staff asked where we were heading and gave us the tip to watch out for the deer, pigs and goats on the road after Mount Hope. She warned us that they can be out and about at all hours of the day, they don’t only come out at dawn and dusk like the kangaroos. She also said there would be emus about! It’s great to get the local knowledge.
We continued north on the Kidman Way this morning. Steve chatted with a tradie staying at the motel who is from Strathmore in Melbourne. The tradie mentioned that the Kidman Way is busy at the moment with the Newell Highway still in a bad way after flooding in late 2022. Apart from a couple of oversize vehicles soon after we left Hillston we found there was very little traffic heading our way. A few vehicles, with and without vans, passed us on their way south.
We drove past many hectares of Patterson’s Curse in uncultivated paddocks that we passed and saw intermittent patches along the roadside. Of course it’s very pretty seeing fields covered in blue/purple but it’s a noxious weed that has taken over vast swathes of Australia.
We saw a couple of emus near the Nombinnie Nature Reserve/State Conservation Area, but they weren’t too near to the road and only a couple of goats on this section of our drive. At about 65 kilometres out of Hillston we passed a sign that officially welcomed us to Outback NSW.
We stopped for a leg stretch in Mount Hope. The best thing about Mount Hope was it’s metal cut-out sign proclaiming that it was established in 1878. Hmmn, it barely seems to be hanging on these days as there is very little there apart from the unispiring looking pub and a rundown community hall … which has funding for a toilet extension according to a sign out the front. There must be something going on the wider community if their hall is qualifying for funding??
After our short break we clambered back into the vehicles to continue towards Cobar. Despite the warnings about feral pigs, goats and deer … and emus after Mount Hope we didn’t have to stop or brake for any animals on the road. There were goats and emus visible from the road but, fortunately, none of them making road hazards of themselves. We saw one dead pig on the verge and some kangaroo road kill but nowhere near as much as we anticipated – dead or alive. The only things ON the road were lizards but we managed to avoid all of the sun baking reptiles.
Approaching Cobar I saw the sign for the Fort Bourke Lookout. Do we want to check out the lookout I asked, but as we sailed past Bernie decided that it didn’t look worth the effort. Arriving in Cobar we stopped at the impressive Cobar Sign and Cornish Rest Area, a tribute to the mining heritage of Cobar. From the sign we drove around the corner to the Great Cobar Museum planning to pick up a guide for the Heritage Walk around the historic township. We collected the map and guide for the walk and then purchased tickets to look around the museum and, more importantly, use their facilities.
After spending a penny we made our way around the museum which is housed in the former administrative building of the Great Cobar Copper Mine. The impressive building was completed in 1912 and has now been restored to its original floor plan. The rooms hold displays and memorabilia that inform visitors about the mining, pastoral, Aboriginal and social history of Cobar. We were given ‘worker’ tags when we entered so that we could pick up our ‘pay checks’ in the payroll office. This provided us with an interesting insight into the wages various workers earned and the purchasing power of their wages.
Cobar is yet another Australian town that sprang up after the accidental discovery of a mineral. In 1870 three tank sinkers, Charles Campbell, Thomas Hartman and George Gibb, were travelling from Bourke to Condolbin with their Aborigianl guides, Boney and Frank. They camped at Kubbur Waterhole, near Cobar where they noticed the unusual colour of the water. They collected samples and showed them to the publicans at Gilgunnia Pub. Mrs Kruge who had worked in the copper mines in Cornwall, England identified the samples as rich copper ore. Needless to say the trio quit being tank sinkers and they filed a claim to mine copper.
From the end of the 19th century until the present day Cobar’s mining fortunes have been up and down. Mines have thrived and then become unprofitable and a variety of different metals have been mined over the years including gold and silver. That lookout that we passed? It turns out that it looks out over the New Cobar Open Cut Gold Mine that currently operates in Cobar. So, after finishing in the outdoor section of the museum, we drove the two kilometres back to the lookout. Not big when compared with the superpit at Kalgoorlie or the Yallourn open cut mine in Gippsland but quite a decent hole in the ground!
Cathy and Steve had lunch with them so we dashed into town to buy sandwiches and then meet them at the mine lookout. We were sure the staff at the museum said there were picnic benches out there??! Nope, nowhere to sit down to eat lunch so we made our way back to the picnic shelter at the museum.
After eating we completed the Heritage Walk around town. Yes, there are a few lovely old buildings – the old Municipal Chambers, the Post Office and the Cobar Court House – but many of the points of interest are empty sites or redeveloped sites where interesting building used be. The tourist information on the internet always talks these sorts of things up making them seem way more interesting than they are in reality. It was better to be out walking around town though than sitting in the vehicles all day. The standout building was probably the Great Western Hotel. Completed in 1898, its 100-metre-long verandah is said to be the longest iron-lace verandah in the Southern Hemisphere. Much more impressive than the BIG Beer Can (Tooheys!) above the entrance of the Grand Hotel. The beer can could seriously do with being re-painted.
After collecting the vehicles from the car park at the museum we drove out to Cobar Railway Station because it was a bit of an outlier on the Heritage Walk. With that ticked off we set out towards our final destination for today, the Darling River Motel in Bourke. This section of the Kidman Way was lousy with feral goats, so many goats! Have to say though that we did not see a single dead goat on the side of the road. They actually seem to be quite road savvy with nearly all of them heading away from the road as we approached.
The same cannot be said for emus. We saw quite a few emus well away from the road, which is where you want to see them, but had to slow down and eventually stop for two as they crossed the road in front of us. Such stupid looking birds, a bit like mops with legs. The legs were going but they didn’t seem to be going anywhere so much as bouncing up and down in front of us! Eventually they bounced off the side of the road and we could proceed.
Entering the Shire of Bourke we passed another sign welcoming us to the outback, but this time telling us we were now in the ‘real’ outback! On our arrival in Bourke we drove out Mooculta Street to find the BP Servo. With the Back O’ Bourke Information & Exhibition Centre out the same way we decided to swing by to see if we could pick up some guides and maps to help make the most of our day in Bourke tomorrow. Phew, their hours are 9.00am to 5.00pm and we managed to walk in at 4.40pm. The very helpful information officer then managed to suggest enough activities to fill several days in and around Bourke.
With the truck refueled we drove back into the main part of town to check in to the motel and say hello to Lucky, the motel cat. We had time to unpack our gear and relax in our room for about an hour before heading along Mitchell Street to the Bourke Bowling Club & Wing Garden Chinese Restaurant for a feed of King prawns with ginger and shallots and some sweet and sour pork with rice. You know you are eating Chinese food in a country town when the only cutlery you have is a fork and a spoon, ha, ha.
