Outback NSW - Big Sky country

For a long time we have wanted to visit White Cliffs in Western NSW and especially experience the novelty of staying at the underground, dugout hotel.  

We always thought that we'd travel to interesting, distant places while we are still relatively young and fit, fit enough to manage the rigours of overseas travel. 

Then, as we get older and our world begins to shrink, we planned to travel in Australia, then NSW, then Sydney and finally, when we are senile and have lost our licences, our big trip might be catching the bus into Penrith from the top of our street.

But this time of COVID has turned all that on its head!

Our plans to visit Canada didn’t happen this year....maybe won't happen even next. A trip organised to Uluru in October is looking doubtful, and we can't even catch the train into Sydney....so  a drive out to White Cliffs rocketed to the top of the list.....and it turned out to be a wonderful experience.

White Cliffs is quite a long way out so we decided to combine it with a bit of genealogy and visit Cobar and Bourke where Wendy's Great, Great, Grandmother lived.

There was a bit of "Deja vu" as we headed out on a cool, sunny Sunday morning in mid August. The last time we had been out this way was on our honeymoon in February 1978 when we drove a Kombi Camper out to Broken Hill and down to the Barossa Valley...and then back home to our little Kingswood house via Melbourne and the South Coast of NSW. 

There were a number of places where Wendy reminded me of my ability to show a girl a "good time"....places like Wilcannia where we camped by the Darling in 1978. We were a bit nervous about getting out of the car this time round as it is clearly a town with issues of crime and poverty.

Our first night was at Cobar where Wendy's grandmother was born. Grandma's father was a fettler and they lived in a dirt floored tent by the railway line where he was working. When she was small she wandered off and got seriously lost....creating quite a search by the people of the camp, a bit like the Johnny Ashcroft song "Little Boy Lost". As a result, she was sent off to live with her grandmother in Bourke and we assume it was because it was no life for a little girl in a fettler's camp and she would be safer with her grandmother.

Cobar was and is a mining town and looked to be quite prosperous in its day with wide streets, large impressive buildings and a number of pubs and banks. Interestingly, our brother in law, Maurie was posted there as a relieving bank manager for the State Bank about 40 years ago. When I asked a couple of "more mature" locals where the old State Bank building was, they pointed it out and mentioned that they had an account there in the old days.

"What is his name?" the old man asked.

"Maurie Van Gorp" I replied.

Then a bit of head scratching and chin stroking followed by.....

"Naa....don't think I know him"😂

                                                        The welcome sign entering Cobar from the East.

    Historical pictures in the main street. The community is proud of its heritage and the town. We liked it as well.

After Cobar the landscape and the mindset changed. The roads were long, straight and flat ....and distances are relative out there. It's nothing for country people to view 100 kilometres as just around the corner....which it actually is with no traffic and straight, flat, quite good roads.

We were expecting a long travelling day but after a brief stop in Nyngan (forever to be known as Nyngan of the filthy toilets 😬) and Wilcannia, we turned on to the Opal Miners' Way and headed North...into the NSW Outback proper...only 93 Km's away.

The Opal Miners' Way

Our timing was really fortunate. There had been rain in the area a few weeks before and the country had come to life. The landscape was carpeted with wildflowers and grasses, making what is usually dusty and dry really quite beautiful .....in a rugged sort of way. 

The rain had also encouraged the wildlife with lots of birds and raptors feeding on the explosion of insects and abundant "road kill" around the district. We saw emus, sheep and cattle but the most prevalent were the goats....masses of them. Surprised us actually. 

We drove and drove, stopping occasionally to explore a small dry water courses with bleached sheep bones and wondering all the while....where are these white cliffs?

And eventually, after 93 kms....there it was, a township of sorts nestled between two mounds rising up out of the vast, red plain.

Smith's Hill. 

There is another equally "impressive" mound to the right called Turley's Hill and the few buildings which constitute the town (pub, school & general store) are  located between. Everything else is located in dugouts, underground. Our hotel was at the back of the hill in the photo above.

Our accommodation, if not unique, is quite unusual and we were pleasantly surprised. I had assured Wendy that if it was really dodgy we could go to Broken Hill (not far off at all in country driving terms) but it turned out to be fine. And it was surprisingly well patronised by grey nomads driving 4 X 4's  and bikers with specially equipped, large and dusty off road bikes. Not the most comfortable way to experience the Outback.

The cave hotel is located in the abandoned shafts and tunnels of Smith's Hill where the miners worked digging for opal  last century. It is actually dug into the side of the hill so the front foyer is quite large and open. There are air shafts sticking out all over the hill but it still feels somewhat "close". 

Our room was small, but comfortable, and it was the only one with a direct tunnel to the communal bathrooms ....handy in the middle of the night! Our air shaft was in the hollow chiselled in the wall with the light in it.

WHITE CLIFFS - NSW

One of the main purposes of our visit was to photograph an extreme landscape with big skies and no light pollution....and I wasn't disappointed. I tend to lean towards landscapes and architecture in my photography preferences .....and this place certainly provided some unique desert views.

On top of our dugout hotel on Smith's Hill, the vista was vast and presented some grand scenes at sunset and sunrise. But also, in the active mining area a bit further out of the township there were scenes reminiscent of a moonscape with mullock heaps, open mine shafts and machinery scattered all around. 

We found, in our exploring of the place, that miners don't seem to trade cars and machinery in....they  discard them, just leaving them lying around...and it makes for some quite interesting shots.

Sunset from on top of our cave hotel, Smith's Hill. 

Same sunset a bit earlier in the evening on the North side of the hill. These trucks (called blowers) work  by vacuum to separate the material to find the opal hidden in the earth dug out of the ground.

Dawn of our last morning ...before the dust storm came. The East side of Smith's hill on the "roof" of our cave hotel.

I was hoping for clear, dark skies and, on our second night, it was exactly that. It was also really quiet. This shot is also taken from on top of Smith's Hill, with help from Wendy...even in the freezing cold!

Using an app called PhotoPills I had planned to be there when the moon was down and the Milky Way vertical in the sky.

We spent the first afternoon, orienting ourselves (didn't take long) and visiting an opal shop in a dugout on Turley's Hill. It was interesting..... but expensive and Wendy didn't feel the urge to fork out for any jewellery....phew! 

The opals in this area are white opals unlike Lightning Ridge which is Black Opal country. It is famous for these light coloured opals, but also the rare Pineapple Opal and even rarer opalised plesiosaur, formed 75 million years ago when the area was an inland sea. That preserved, prehistoric monster was found in the 1970s after some painstaking excavation.

We spent time on our "rest" day exploring the opal mining fields, the cemetery, and surrounding countryside. We concluded that people who mine out here, and particularly those who were there in the 19th century, are and were very hardy souls. The heat (50 degrees C in summer) lack of water, dust, disease and remoteness make for a very inhospitable place indeed.

The "lunar" like landscape is littered with dangerous open shafts surrounded by mullock heaps and mining machinery in various states of repair scattered all around. It is deathly quiet and the carpeting of wildflowers made it quite surreal.

This is a "pano" shot taken with the iPhone trying to capture the vastness of the landscape.

This view is from on the side of one of the larger mullock heaps. It doesn't require much rain to have the desert burst into bloom. Usually it would be just bare spoil from the mines. What good timing for us.

There is an old Solar Thermal Power Station dating from the 1980's. It is located in the town just near the golf course (dirt with sand and diesel greens) and the Bill O'Reilly Oval.....which is just an area with the surface rocks removed! His father was a teacher and he was born there in 1905.

It was a really interesting place to visit. The history the dugouts, the vistas, the mining ....but the enduring image for us will be of the desert in bloom..... after rain. With just the slightest amount of water it is just transformed....briefly but beautifully.....in a rugged sort of way.

BOURKE

Named after Governor Bourke by Thomas Mitchell in the 1830's when he made a fort to protect his men from aggressive Aborigines while they were exploring. One of his party had earlier been speared to death. 

It lies on the Darling about five hours country driving on the sealed roads from White Cliffs. There are other ways to get there from White Cliffs but the Statesman is not really designed for rough outback tracks, so back via Cobar we went. It's not that far really but the day we left the winds came up from the west and there was a huge pall of dust following us all the way.

The dust was incredible. I was trying in this shot to capture the space and the wildflowers in the paddocks either side of the road.

On the way to Bourke the wildlife was abundant. Roos, emus with chicks...... and goats. There were hundreds of them ....and gave good reason for caution as they wander all over the road.

We didn't know what to expect in Bourke. We knew it has history....Henry Lawson, Breaker Morant, Fred Hollows and many other characters.....but we weren't prepared for the shuttered shops, the tall fences and the guard dogs. We wandered around the town admiring the beautiful stately buildings from a past era and didn't feel at all uncomfortable .......but there was no hiding the subtle signs. 

And even the not so subtle. We stayed in an old, very old, quaint motel with "character" in the heart of the town and backing on to the Darling River. When checking in, the manager made it clear that the gates (reinforced with welded steel rods) were closed at 8.30pm sharp and not opened until 6.30 am. If we were going to be out later we would need a special key. 

I assured him we would be "home" by 8.30...without doubt!

The motel was located in beautiful grounds and some of the buildings were actually part of the first pub in Bourke built in 1861. I went for a wander around the grounds to check the place out.... and to my surprise it was surrounded by an electric fence.😳

And it wasn't the only one in the town. I've never been corralled by an electric fence before!

Nevertheless, the food was great in the local pubs and clubs and bakery and we enjoyed our time...particularly the fantastic Back 'o Bourke visitors' centre. What a pleasure it is when things are done properly and not on the cheap. This museum is a must for any visitor to the town. 

We visited an artist's gallery in North Bourke whose work was really quite good, inspected the famous curved bridge across the Darling (built to allow the paddle steamers through in floods by raising the middle section with a series of pulleys)  and we explored the cemetery...as we tend to do...following the genealogy of Wendy's mother's mother's line.

The bridge was built in the 1880's when Bourke was a bustling river port, supplying the interior and exporting the products of the local stations via the paddle steamers.

The reason for our stay in Bourke was to visit Wendy's great grandmother's grave located in the historical part of the cemetery. Wendy recalls fondly her grandma speaking of her time there (after the getting lost in Cobar incident) in the early 1900's. She recalled the cameleers and their camel trains coming through the town selling their wares....pots, pans and clothesline props. Apparently they would have lollies with them to attract the kids out....and the mothers would follow. She also never forgot the kindness of her grandmother who looked after her so well...and who suffered some hardship and tragedy in her life in the outback.

We found Fred Hollows' grave pretty easily and then eventually located Wendy's great grandmother's grave to place some flowers. Unexpectedly she noticed something that she wasn't aware of before. At the foot of Sarah Keary's grave is a smaller grave, with a stone lamb on top, containing three of her infant children. So sad.....what a hard life those people endured.

Wendy at her great great grandmother's grave.....and the children's grave at the foot.

HOME ......THE LONGER WAY

We had a couple of days in Bourke (it was enough) and decided in our planning to head home the long way via Brewarrina and Walgett. It would give us a good look at the country out there and also take us through Coonamble where Wendy's Dad was considering a posting in the 1960's....but opted for Cessnock instead as it was a bigger town and closer to the coast and family.

Brewarrina and Walgett are both towns that have been victims of the change in population and demographics. Clearly, from the beautiful, large old buildings, these were thriving, busy and dynamic country towns serving the needs of large farming communities a hundred years or so ago.....but not any more. 

Our population has urbanised and moved to the coast and these towns are really struggling. We stopped in Walgett for a "cuppa" and noticed in the Real Estate Office nearby that homes were quite "affordable". They were by no means modern mansions, but nonetheless, $65 - $180K for a dwelling?

This mural on one of the pubs near Gilgandra gives an impression of country life "back in the day".

We spent our last night in Gilgandra of the First World War "Cooee March" fame and headed home through Mudgee and the mountains........ to be greeted by freezing cold, rain and snow. 

We really liked Gilgandra and little places like Gulargambone in the heart of wheat and sheep country.  The landscape is more fertile and the wheat and canola fields were a picture. Gilgandra is big enough for a club, a couple of pubs and a main street of shops and cafes. And with larger centres like Mudgee, Orange and Dubbo not too far away, hopefully it may experience a renaissance in years to come.

The type of scenery around Coonamble, Gulargambone and Gilgandra. Wheat/sheep country.

We aren't able to travel at present as we have in the past ...... and we have no idea for how long, but there is plenty to see in our own state and we thoroughly enjoyed our time in the Outback of NSW.