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We had mixed feelings about leaving Lightning Ridge, on one hand we had loved our stay here, there had been so much to see and do and as I have said many times this is one of the most unique towns we have ever been to. On the other hand we were both desperate to have internet service, it had been a long four nights not being able to reach our normal internet services and on top of that the TV reception was very limited. Hopefully when we get to Bourke I will be able to catch up on all my photos and blogs for the last few days. We have already agreed with each other that we are going to check the internet availability before booking in to a park. We had an easy drive from Lightning Ridge to Bourke, driving firstly through Walgett and then Brewarrina, two interesting towns before finally reaching our destination. There are two caravan parks in Bourke one in the town and one 8kms out. We thought we would try the one in town first because we had three bars on 4G, when I walked up to the office I noticed they had a sign out the front to say they were full but we have learnt many times this may not mean we can't get in so I walked into the office and enquired. Sure enough I was told if I am prepared to wait for 5 minutes they may have a spot for us. It is a very long story and I won't bore you here but there was one client disputing a payment for tonight on behalf of their friends. So the outcome after much toing and froing was that we took the booking paying the park for three nights and refunding the other couple for one night. We set up had lunch and then drove into town for some needed shopping so while here we took a quick look around. When we returned to home we settled in to some very serious internet usage and I started going through my photos and starting my blogs, I have quite a bit of work to do it may take me a couple of days.
We drove into town in the morning to pick up a coffee from the bakery before driving to the Back O' Bourke Information and Exhibition Centre where we hoped to find tourist information for the next few days. Our coffee was from Morrall's Bakery and it was really good, we didn't realise there was a cafe at the visitor centre or we probably would have purchased it there. The staff at the centre were really helpful and we came away with a small list of things to do for the next few days. We are not sure that we needed to stay here for as long as we have booked but it will give us the opportunity to have a bit of a rest. We drove from the centre to the wharf in town and had a bit of a wander, there has been a lot of rain in the area and the wharf is still a bit flooded but we walked underneath the top platform and I took a few photos of the structure and the Darling River. From here we went in search of the weir and loch but it took us quite a while to find it as there weren't any directions on the map we had been given. It was a bit of a disappointment when we did arrive so we didn't stay long. We drove back to the van from here, I will appreciate the down time to catch up with my photos. The Crossley Engine at the Wharf will be started up and running between 12.00 noon and 1.00pm and we plan to return to see it working. By the time we return to the wharf the engine has been started so we took a seat to listen to the gentleman giving a talk about the starting up and working of this engine. The engine had a beautiful beat to it and I was waiting for the guitars to kick in to complete the musical element.
We thought we would visit the remainder of the attractions listed on our visitor map that had been suggested by the centre and thought we would start with the ones furtherest away from town, the first one being the Fort Bourke Stockade. We had very conflicting responses from our maps with regards to position but eventually settled on one and put this into our GPS. This was a 20 minute drive out of town and when we arrived at the location there wasn't anything there. We turned around and went in search of the next possibility which turned out to be correct. There was one little sign pointing to the attraction and when we turned on the road we saw gates and signs basically telling us this was private property and access was restricted and we needed a key from the Visitor Centre. Robb went out to investigate and couldn't see a lock on the gate so he unravelled the rope and opened the gate, we drove through shutting the gate behind us as instructed. We then went on a 10 minute drive through unmade road and at times along a goat track beside the Darling River. We finally arrived at our destination and to say we were completely underwhelmed would be an exaggeration. There is a stockade about 3x3 metres made of logs stacked on top of each other, how Mitchell held off an attack here is mind boggling. This is not even the original stockade but a replica and beside the stockade is a cairn dedicated to Mitchell, it was lucky the scenery was good. On our drive here we had passed the cemetery and decided to call in here on our way back, I particularly wanted to see the Fred Hollows grave and memorial which we found easily because there were quite a few people here taking a look. I am not sure that I did get a good photo of this but the rocks around the grave and memorial are in the shape of an eye, Fred is buried under the Coolibah tree in the photos. We had a quick look around other parts of the cemetery before moving on. Our next stop was North Bourke Bridge, this was the first lift bridge built in NSW. It isn't in use any longer but it is very attractive, Robb had to do a bit of mountain climbing to get a really good position for a photo. The airport was just down the road from here where I wanted to visit the Nancy Bird Air Terminal, there isn't a lot to see here but the terminal is dedicated to Nancy who helped to establish the Air Ambulance service and started the Australian Women's Pilot Association. Our last stop was the Percy Hobson Mural, Percy was Australia's first indigenous Commonwealth Games Gold Medallist for high jump.
I think we have exhausted our exploration of Bourke so after a bit of shopping this morning and filling up with fuel we have decided to have lunch at the Port of Bourke Hotel where we sat outside to eat because it was quite pleasant in the sun and it was freezing inside the hotel. We will be moving onto Cobar tomorrow and at this stage will probably only be for one night, I want to visit the open cut mine but after researching Cobar there wasn't anything else I wanted to visit. If we arrive and the situation changes we will just add another night to our stay.
Today we moved onto Cobar which was only about 180kms from Bourke. I had booked a site at the caravan park in Cobar last night for one night. There wasn't a lot to see on the drive and we arrived in good time, we had put the address to the caravan park into the GPS so we went straight there. We arrived at 11.15am and check in wasn't until 12.00noon so we had to go and find something to do for 45 minutes. We drove to the Visitor Centre to see if we could take the van up to the look-out but we were told we couldn't so we settled for walking around the Cobar's Miners Heritage Park to fill in time, this is a worthwhile attraction but we still arrived back at the park before 12.00. We had to stand around and wait until 12.00 noon, there was one couple ahead of us and we just looked at each other a lifted our eyebrows. Anyway finally we were allowed to book in, we had liked the look of Cobar so we added another night to our booking. We easily found our site and set up. After lunch we drove to The Great Cobar Museum and Visitor Centre and paid for our entry to take a look around the museum. The museum is in a beautiful building that was originally the offices of the Cobar mine and the local Apex and Lions clubs convinced the mines to donate the building to the community. The museum covers two floors and a courtyard area. We enjoyed the bottom floor which has been well set up with lots of information and old photos and equipment, the top floor was just like any other museum with old homewares but one of the rooms was dedicated to shearing and this was quite interesting. The courtyard has lots of old mining equipment, we didn't worry about looking around here but walked on to the old mining pit which is now full of water. We drove back to camp from here and will have more of a look around tomorrow.
We didn't have a lot planned for today so we had our coffee at home and had a read before driving to the Gold Mine Pit, this is the main reason we are here, I had heard it was quite impressive and I was interested to see it. Cobar isn't very big and the pit can be viewed from Fort Bourke Hill Lookout which is just down the road from where we are staying. We were the only ones there at the time, it may have had something to do with the fact it is very cold today in Cobar and the lookout was very chilly. The lookout has a bit of a shed around it which protected us a little bit but I took the photos I wanted and we watched the activity in the pit for a while and then moved on to St. Laurence O'Toole Catholic Church back in town. This is a beautiful old church and it was open at the time so we went in for a look around. It is just as beautiful inside as out, we walked to the mezzanine floor to take a couple of photos looking down on the altar and front of the church. The windows were covered with blinds but I took a photo of a couple of them and I think they may have all been the same. We drove down to the Main Street and parked so we could take a look at some of the older buildings around town. It is a shame that some of the buildings are in such bad repair, I am sure they would have been beautiful in their day. While we were walking down the street we ran into our neighbours in the park, I had a conversation with the lady yesterday and she recognised me and called out so we stood and had a chat before we moved onto The Great Western Hotel for a drink. I do this so that I can look through the building, it seems a bit rude just to walk in and take photos and not buy a drink, well that's my excuse anyway. The hotel is only a shadow of it's former self, the building is nearly one block long on the Main Street but inside the hotel now only has three small rooms that are still operating as the hotel. I am sure it was very impressive at one time but now it just looks tired and in need of TLC. There are beautiful tiles around parts of the wall and the fireplace, I took a photo of the fireplace but unfortunately it had a gas heater fitted in the opening which took away from the aesthetic pleasure but I must admit it was so cold outside I appreciated the warmth.
Moving on today we were going to stay in Wilcannia for one night and then move onto Broken Hill where we intend to stay for a few nights, this is one of our favourite places visit. We read a few reviews on Wilcannia and changed our mind about staying there and after driving through and stopping for fuel we were glad we did. There were some beautiful buildings in Wilcannia though, most built with sandstone and I managed to get photos of some of them today on the drive through. It was a long drive to Broken Hill and we didn't arrive until later in the afternoon without managing to find anywhere to stop for lunch on the way. The first park we went to was booked out so we moved onto the park we stayed at last time we were here and managed to book a site. It was getting quite cool but it didn't take us long to park and set up, thankfully, it was so late we decided not to worry about lunch and to get take away for dinner. We decided to settle on pizzas and looked up the options in Broken Hill, we found an outlet with good reviews and put the address into the GPS and drove here quite early for us for dinner but we were both hungry and I didn't think we would be having a late night tonight. Pizzas were good and there is plenty left over for lunch tomorrow.
So here we are in one of our favourite Australian towns and back at a park we have previously stayed at. This was not our first choice because last time we stayed here, while we had a good time, was not the nicest park we had been to but the park we wanted to stay at was full and they recommended us to try here. There has been lots of changes since last time we were here and the park is looking pretty good so we are happy to spend our five nights in this park. We had lots of cleaning to take care of today so Robb is in charge of taking the washing to the dryers when needed, the weather isn't really good and I would normally hang it out on the awning but our bedding is not going to dry in time to put back on for tonight. While Robb was monitoring the drying I was cleaning our very dirty van. It was a very intense clean and took me a couple of hours to complete, I had the last lot of washing in the machine and we took off to do a bit of shopping we needed before driving to the Visitor Centre to see if there is anything we should look at different to what we had seen before. The gentleman at the centre was very helpful, we explained we had been here before and he noticed my camera so suggested attractions that were fairly new and areas that were most photogenic. Between us we managed to find quite a few things to do that we haven't done before, we came away with quite a bit of information I will go through later tonight. I took a few photos around town as we travelled back to the park, Broken Hill has some very impressive buildings, probably most I have photographed previously. It is pretty cold here and the wind is very chilly, it is supposed to be warming up a bit tomorrow reaching 19 degrees on the weekend.
Our hopes for an improvement in the weather today didn't quite work out and we woke up to intermittent rain and very low temperatures. Our plan for the day was to visit the lookouts around Broken Hill but sitting having our coffee we weren't too sure we would have good visibility for the views we were expecting. We decided to give it a go anyway and headed off to our first destination. We didn't have an address just an approximate position but thankfully we eventually found Browns Shaft (Junction Mine) which wasn't a big area but we had a quick look around and read the information boards. We then went in search of J. P. Keenan Lookout which gave views back over Broken Hill but at the time we arrived the visibility had dropped again so I did the best I could with photos. Unfortunately our next stop was Block 10 Lookout which was closed so we drove onto our last lookout destination for the morning Line of Lode Reserve and the Miners Memorial. The Broken Earth Cafe here is closed and we are not sure what they are doing but there is a lot of work happening at this building. We have visited Broken Hill three times and this cafe has only been open once in that time. We took the walkway around the works to the Miners Memorial where I hoped to get good views over Broken Hill for photos. I took a few photos from here and they didn't come out too bad but from previous experience they are much better when we have good visibility. Walking back to the car I suggested to Robb our next stop should be an inside one and he agreed, we chose to visit the Jack Absalom Gallery. We parked and walked inside, entry is only $4PP, there is one room of Jack's work but it does cover every wall and the walls are quite high. I quite liked his work maybe because it was mainly outback scenes and I recognised a lot of the places from our travels. Robb wasn't too impressed I think he preferred Pro Hart's work that we had visited last time here. We drove back to camp from here to do the few jobs we needed to do and have lunch.
Our day started with a visit to the Broken Hill Mosque museum which had been suggested at the Visitor Centre. It is open every Friday at 10.00am but apparently you can organise a tour by appointment at other times. We had been told that Garry, a bit of a character and a wealth of knowledge on the mosques, would be there to guide us through the attraction and they weren't wrong. There is a small mosque and a large one side by side, not what we were expecting but basically two small sheds but historically quite significant. The historical society are expecting to receive funds to improve the museum and there has been work on the buildings but we were glad to see they had kept to the original design and style. I can see this eventually building into a larger updated museum but you would hope they keep these original buildings as they are. We learnt lots about the first camels in the area, which came from the Canary Islands, and the people who came to Broken Hill to drive them. the camels have been an important part of our history with regards to transportation in the outback and it is important that we don't lose these stories. We drove from here to Silverton, we have visited here each time we have been in Broken Hill but it is just good fun to have a look around and stop off for lunch at the Silverton Hotel. When we arrived we drove around the 'streets', last time we were here we visited all the galleries and museums so didn't feel the need to do it again but we enjoyed just visiting the area. When you come to Silverton one of the highlights is seeing the donkeys walking around the streets, last time we were here there was only one donkey left but we were happy to see that this time there were four donkeys in all. We are warned not to feed the donkeys but it is nice just to have a pat while walking around or having them put their snouts through the open car window. We shared snacks at the hotel for lunch, sitting by the fire because it is still so cold outside, before driving back to the park.
Did you know that Broken Hill is the only Heritage Listed City in Australia? I didn't either but we have been told this a few times now by very proud citizens. The honour was bestowed on the city in 2015 and it is considered to be the quintessential outback city with its wide streets, warm hospitality and beautiful old hotels and buildings that contrast startlingly with shabby old miner's cottages and empty shops and pubs. On top of this Broken Hill is surrounded by such a vast area of empty very pretty outback land, I don't have any trouble at all understanding why it has been awarded this accolade. After starting our morning with a (bad) coffee at Mac's Oven Foods on Argent street we set off on our city walk. Argent Street is the Main Street in Broken Hill and while you can see many beautiful buildings along other streets this is the main thoroughfare. I took lots of photos, most of which I have taken a few times before but I just couldn't resist. We returned home from here I want to visit The Palace Hotel but it doesn't open until 12.00 noon on Saturday so we have decided to return home for lunch and then come back early afternoon for a quiet drink and look through. We thought 2.30pm was a respectable time to return, there were only a few people here then but it did start to fill up a little bit while we were there. They have a band on tonight, being Saturday night, and they were out the back practising so we had music with our drinks. While Robb ordered these I took a wander around taking photos, it is a beautiful old hotel with lots of murals on the ceiling and walls, I think some have been added since we were last here but maybe I just don't remember them. Last time I was permitted to go upstairs for photos but this time there are signs everywhere saying only patrons are permitted up there, I didn't think buying a drink at the bar put me in that category. The Palace Hotel is famous for being the hotel in 'The Adventures of Priscilla Queen of The Dessert' Australian movie and there are small reminders of this fact scattered around the hotel. We didn't stay long, I just wanted to take a few photos and we had one drink and returned home. We are moving on tomorrow to Mildura where we will catch up with our friends. We are getting very close to home now but we are both ready to return I think, there is a strange phenomena that we have spoken to other caravaners about but once you get within a sniff of home you just want to get there. We haven't planned our trip after Mildura but we will try to visit a few places we haven't been before in Victoria, not that I think there are many but we will see how we go.
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