Introduction

Welcome to the Corner Country Adventure.  This trip is one that will traverse the outback areas of New South Wales, South Australia and Queensland. You will be taken through some magnificent country as well as experiencing some of the early  exploration history of Australia, its pastoral history and its mining history.  It will be a reasonably leisurely trip with the maximum distance travelled any day being about 500 km. Accommodation will be a variety of caravan parks and bush camps.

 As this is an outback trip it is important to be prepared for most types of emergencies. The usual motor vehicle spare parts such as belts, hoses, spark plugs, fuses, oil (engine & gearbox) etc are necessary. A puncture repair kit would also be desirable. Ray does have one that he carries at all times. The greatest distance between fuel outlets is 450 km. If your vehicle does not have that fuel range then additional fuel will need to be carried. Ray & Cheryl have a comprehensive First Aid kit and also a satellite phone that may be used when there is no mobile phone signal (will be majority of the time). The satellite phone will be on most of the time so family or friends may contact you at any time. The phone number is 0147 146 289. If the phone is not answering a message may be left on the message bank. It would also be helpful if vehicles were fitted with a UHF radio, either hand held or fixed, in order to communicate between vehicles. The official 4WD channel is Ch. 10. The emergency channel for calling for help is Ch. 5.

 Ray carries necessary recovery equipment (although it should not be needed) unless somebody decides to become bogged or some other mishap occurs.

 Food and fuel will be available in the following centres: Dubbo, Bourke, Wannaaring, Tibooburra, Innamincka, Thargomindah, Eulo, Cunnamulla and Lightning Ridge. In the smaller outposts the food supply is basic and items such as bread and fresh meat will be frozen. Water for drinking, cooking, washing etc. will also need to be carried. I would suggest a minimum of 40 litres be carried. Insect repellent is mandatory on this trip.

 It will also be necessary to purchase a South Australian Desert Parks Pass in order to enter the Innamincka and Strzelecki Regional Reserves. The pass may be purchased online at http://www.exploroz.com/Infopages/RegionNotes/Deserts.asp or http://www.westprint.com.au/Desert%20Parks%20Update.htm or by completing the attached application form. Alternately the Pass may also be purchased at Innamincka Store upon arrival.

Day 1  - Dubbo - Bourke

 Depart early and head to Bourke. Overnight will be at Kidman Camp at North Bourke. If time permits a drive around Bourke and surrounds will be possible.  

Located 789 km north west of Sydney, Bourke is situated on the Darling River 110 m above sea level. It is, by any measure, a thriving country town with a population around 3500 and a sense of prosperity which is the result of its geographic importance as the centre of a large wool, cotton and citrus area.

The prosperity of the town belies the assessments of the first Europeans who travelled through the area. When Charles Sturt passed through the district in 1828 he thought that the whole area was 'unlikely to become the haunt of civilised man'. Sturt, accompanied by Hamilton Hume, reached the Darling River (Sturt named the river after Sir Ralph Darling, Governor of NSW at the time) about 30 km north of the present town site and they followed the river downstream for about 100 km. They had arrived in the area during a period of drought and, although Sturt was to refer to the Darling as that 'noble river' he was to stop travelling down it because, at the time, it was saline and very low. He returned to Sydney with less that glowing reports of the area. Certainly he did nothing to encourage settlement.

It wasn't until 1835 that Sir Thomas Mitchell returned to the area and constructed a fort about 13 km south of the town site. Mitchell had bad relations with the local Aborigines and he felt a fort was suitable protection against their attacks. It was named Fort Bourke after the governor of NSW, Sir Richard Bourke (1777-1855). Eventually the district and later the town came to be known by this name.

Fort Bourke was short-lived but it did establish the possibility of settlement in the area and over the next decade pastoralists (some of them speculators) moved into the area. It was marginal land and few prospered. However the history of the district changed dramatically when, in 1859, Captain W. R. Randall sailed the Gemini up the Darling from South Australia. Suddenly Bourke and Brewarrina and other centres along the river became vital transport nodes. For decades Bourke was the transport centre for the whole of south west Queensland and western NSW. Its port was the only efficient way to transport wool to the coastal markets and at its height in the late 1800s over 40 000 bales of wool were being shipped down the Darling annually. The river transport continued until the last commercial riverboat in 1931.

In 1862 the township was surveyed and the first businesses - 'Bourke Store' and 'Bourke' Hotel - were established. That same year, the town's first court case - a bushranging charge - was conducted in the open air. This was a boom time for the town with large landholdings being taken up by optimistic graziers. The unreliability of the rainfall - it averages 340 mm but is likely to vary from 150 mm one year to 800 mm the next - forced many of the optimists out of the area.

Historic Buildings
There is so much to see of historical interest in Bourke. The town's history is genuinely interesting and the places of historical importance have been well preserved. The common sense first stop should be at the Tourist Information Office in the 2WEB building in Oxley Street east of the Police Station. The Tourist Information Office provides an excellent brochure, complete with a detailed map, which highlights the town's most interesting and important buildings.

The most interesting buildings in Bourke include the 'Lands Building', now Government Offices, which was built between 1863-1865 as the town's first Court House. It served the town for only a decade before the second court house was built in 1875. Today the first Court House has been beautifully restored and is one of the most attractive buildings in the town. It is located in Mitchell Street one block west of Richard Street.

One of the town's most impressive buildings, and certainly one of the most photographed, is the Court House at 51 Oxley Street which was built in 1899 - a true Federation building. The Court itself, which is open for inspection, is beautifully preserved and has an appropriate air of solemnity. This Court House must be one of the first 'project' court houses in the country as it is almost identical to the Wagga Court House which the architect, Walter Vernon, designed at the same time.

A little further down Oxley Street (the main street of town) is the Post Office which was built in 1879 with the upper floor being added some years later. It survived the 1890 flood (the town's worst flood when the river broke its banks and the levees which had been built) by building its own levee bank.

Much is made of the Carriers Arms Hotel (on the Mitchell Highway two blocks from Richard Street) in which Henry Lawson reputedly wrote some stories and which was a popular Cobb & Co stopoff point. Built in 1879, the building is now singularly unimpressive. When compared to the large number of old and interesting buildings in town it is a great disappointment.

Afghan Mosque/Bourke Cemetery
Bourke Cemetery has the graves of several Afghan camel drivers, as well as the corrugated-iron shack they used as a mosque. The local camel drivers once stationed over 2000 camels at a site just south of the town's present showgrounds.

The Bourke Weir
The Bourke Weir (it can be reached by driving west along Anson Street and following the signs) was opened in 1897 and was designed to maintain a reasonable level of water in the river near the town. The lock was nearly 60 metres long and 11 metres wide and was the only one built on the Darling. It was concreted and converted into a weir in 1941.

Mud Map Tours
The Mud Map Tours, a brochure which is freely available around the town, offers a number of suggested tours around the area. Of all these the short journey out to Fort Bourke Stockade is probably the most interesting. On the way out to the stockade stop at the cemetery (the section closest to town is the oldest) where there are a number of graves of Afghan camel drivers. They are easy to identify because, unlike the Christian graves, they are all pointing towards Mecca. About 50 metres further across is the grave of John McCabe, a local policeman who was shot by bushranger Captain Starlight in 1868. The highwayman was captured nearly three months later and held in Bourke where he was charged before being tried in Bathurst

Fort Bourke Stockade
Ironically the trip out to Fort Bourke Stockade is actually more interesting than the reconstructed Stockade. About 15 km out of town the road passes around a wildlife refuge which is extraordinarily beautiful. The actual fort itself is nothing more than a few logs in the middle of nowhere. The argument, which is true, is that there is no accurate information about what Mitchell's stockade looked like but it is reasonable to assume that it looked nothing like this re-creation which would barely hold a single man for half an hour and certainly wouldn't have deterred the 'hostile natives' that Mitchell was so afraid of.

There are seven mud maps in the brochure with trips around the town which range from fishing to wildflowers and a trip out through the cotton growing areas.

 Day 2 Bourke - Tibooburra

 Leaving Bourke we will travel to Wanaaring where fuel will be available. Located on the banks of the Paroo River,195 km north-west of Bourke, Wanaaring was established in the 1880s as a service centre to the surrounding stations, which it remains today.

We leave the bitumen out of Bourke and will not rejoin it again until Day 8. After we leave Wanaaring we will travel west to Tibooburra where we will stay at the local caravan park.

 Days 3 and 4 - Tibooburra

 There is something impossibly romantic about Tibooburra. There it is in the far north-western corner of New South Wales. It is frequently the hottest place in the state with temperatures rising into the 40s. It is 335 km north of Broken Hill, 1504 km north-west of Sydney, 900 km from Adelaide. It seems so isolated and yet it is full of friendliness and activity. Here is the local School of the Air. Here is a pub where some of Australia's most famous artists have painted memorable images on the walls. Here is a marvellous Pioneer Park (often with not a blade of grass) with a wonderful sculpture of a full-size 27-foot long whaleboat perched on the top of some poles - a replica of the whaleboat Charles Sturt hauled across inland Australia. And here, on the edge of the huge Sturt National Park which covers 310,634 hectares you can really feel as though you are in the heart of the desert.

 We have two days in Tibooburra. One day can be spent traveling to the old mining town of Milparinka, Depot Glen and Mt Poole and the other day we will take a trek on the loop road through Sturt National Park. As these will not be full days the remainder of the time can be spent relaxing around town and also having a drink or two in the pub.

 Day 5 Tibooburra - Innamincka

 We will head north-west from Tibooburra towards Cameron Corner. We will stop at Fort Grey and take a walk to Lake Frome (hopefully it will contain some water). Travel to Cameron Corner will be up and down over red sand dunes and across clay pans. Upon reaching Cameron Corner we will take a break at the Corner Store before heading west past Bollard’s Lagoon to Merty Merty Station. After reaching Merty Merty Station we will take the old Strzelecki Track to Innamincka. Along the way we will pass many gas and oil fields. Accommodation at Tibooburra will be camping on the town common. The only facilities here are pit toilets. Showers are available opposite the General Store. An SA Desert Parks Pass is necessary to stay at Innamincka.

 Days 6 & 7 - Innamincka

 Innamincka is a tiny outback settlement with literally nothing more than a general store, a pub, some fuel pumps, the ruins of the old Royal Flying Doctor Base (which was closed down in 1951) and an airstrip in the dry, flat wasteland that is the Strzelecki Desert. To the north lies the vast Innamincka Station which was established in 1872. Once owned by the cattle baron Sidney Kidman, it covers 13 817 sq km while, to the south, is Gidgealpa Station, covering 4900 sq km.

The Innamincka area was first explored by Europeans when Charles Sturt came through the area in 1845. Sturt was followed by the hapless Burke and Wills (the one survivor from the expedition, John King, was found near the Innamincka waterhole) who reached the area in 1861. There are a number of important Burke and Wills sites in the area. In Innamincka there is a monument to the two explorers, about 25 km west of the town is Wills grave, and some 54 km east is the famous 'Dig' tree where supplies were left for the explorers. It was the cruelest irony of the whole ill-fated expedition that the camp was abandoned by William Brahe and the support team only 7 hours before the arrival of Burke and Wills. The local publican happily provides detailed information on how to get to all the Burke and Wills sites.

The town, if it could ever be called a town, came into existence in 1882 with the establishment of a police camp. This was enough to start a small settlement and by 1886 there was a general store and a hotel. The movement of cattle and sheep along the Cooper Creek ensured that the settlement prospered.

There is a delightful story of how, because the customers were infrequent, the hotel could only supply bottled beer. Kegs of beer would have been tapped and then stood around for weeks. The result of this bottle culture was that by the early 1950s the town had a huge bottle dump which was over a metre high and some hundreds of metres wide.

In 1890 the town was gazetted as Hopetoun. It was named after the Governor of Victoria, the Earl of Hopetoun. The official name was so disliked by the locals that it lasted only a month before they insisted upon a change. The original name of Innamincka, after which the nearby station had been named, persisted. It is claimed that Innamincka was a corruption of 'Yidniminckanie' a word used by the local Aborigines to describe a legend in which the rainbow serpent disappeared into a nearby waterhole. There is an alternative version which says it simply meant 'your shelter'. Take your pick.

For a short time the township thrived. Before 1901 it was an important customs depot where state taxes were collected from drovers moving cattle across the border from Queensland into South Australia. Its decline was slow. The Royal Flying Doctor Base was established in 1928 and continued to serve the surrounding area until 1951. Modern transportation made Innamincka largely irrelevant to the needs of the area. By 1952 the town was completely uninhabited.

The job of converting Innamincka into a ghost town (indeed little more than a memory) was completed by a huge flood in 1956 which washed the remains of the hotel, the police station, half of the Flying Doctor Base and all of the bottles downstream.

The 1970s saw renewed interest in the ghost town. Vast underground gas fields were discovered in the area (gas from the area accounts for 80 per cent of South Australia's electricity requirements)

 One day will be spent travelling out to Coongie Lake and return, a distance of 240 km. Coongie Lake is a remarkable semi-permanent lake system found on the north-west branch of the lower Cooper Creek. The Coongie Lakes wetland system is the only major unpolluted, unregulated freshwater system in arid Australia. The wetlands change depending on the amount of rainwater flowing down the Cooper creek tributaries from southern Queensland. In extreme flood conditions this north-west corner of the state is transformed into a huge lake, unimaginable six months later at the height of summer.

The second day in Innamincka will be spent relaxing and looking around some of the historical areas in the district.
 

Day 8 Innamincka to Eulo
 

This day we will commence travelling east on the Bulloo Development Road.  We can stop at the Cullyamurra Waterhole and further along at Nappa Merrie Station we can view the Burke & Wills Dig Tree.  Travelling further east we will detour for 20 km to visit Noccundra which is home to both history and hospitality at the Noccundra Hotel. Built in 1882, the picturesque building is situated among trees near the bank of the Wilson River. The Noccundra Hotel is a fine example of stone construction and has obtained heritage listing as one of the oldest buildings in south-west Queensland. The hotel was constructed to house workers at nearby Nockatunga Station.

We will then travel on to Thargomindah. Thargomindah was gazetted as a town on 31 December 1874 and by 1891 had a population of 338. The town's main activities at the time were to service the surrounding stations such as Bulloo Downs and Durham Downs. Later it became an important stopover for carriers taking wool from Queensland down to the steamers which sailed down the Darling River from Bourke. The town's one claim to fame is its artesian bore. The bore, which lies 2 km out of town on the Noccundra road, was drilled in 1891 and by 1893, having drilled to a depth of 795 metres, the water came to the surface. It was then that the town successfully attempted a unique experiment. The pressure of the bore water was used drive a generator which supplied the town's electricity. Enthusiasts have described this as Australia's first hydro-electricity scheme. The system operated until 1951. Today the bore still provides the town's water supply. The water reaches the surface at 84°C. We then travel past Lake Bindegolly National Park. A refuge for waterbirds, Lake Bingegolly centres around one of the most important wetland systems in south-west Quensland.

 We finally reach Eulo where we will camp at  the local caravan park for the night. Do not be put off by first impressions. The owner is very hospitable and puts on a huge camp fire each night. Eulo is basically little more than a one-pub, one-general store town and yet it has a charm which makes it something more than just another outback Queensland town.  Adjacent to the Eulo Queen pub, is the famous 'Paroo Track' which is where the world lizard racing championships are held each August. At the left-hand side of the track is a piece of granite with a plaque which reads: 'Cunnamulla-Eulo Festival of Opals. 'Destructo', champion racing cockroach accidentally killed at this track (24.8.1980) after winning the challange (sic) stakes against 'Wooden Head' champion racing lizard 1980. Unveiled 23.8.81'. Somehow the spelling mistake, the absurdity of a cockroach racing a lizard, the circumstances under which the cockroach was trodden underfoot (by a drunken and enthusiastic punter, perhaps?), all lend an immediate charm to the town.

Eulo has seasonal variations in its population. In winter some dozen beekeepers bring their bees from the south to feed on the eucalypts in the area. The honey, a distinctive Warrego variety, is dark and delicious.

Eulo also has a date and fig farm where you can try some of their dates and also their date wine (which I think is bloody awful). Their fig jam is the best I have ever tasted. The General Store sells anything you would want to buy.

A few drinks at the Eulo Queen Hotel might cap off our longest traveling day.

 Day 9 Eulo - Culgoa Floodplain National Park

 This could be a bit of an adventure as we are venturing into unkown territory for me. Culgoa Flood Plain NP was formally Byra Station and was gazetted a park in 1994 and is 42,846 hectares in size. Camping is basic and we have to be self sufficient.

Day 10 Culgoa Floodplain National Park - Lightning Ridge

 Once we leave the national park we shortly arrive a Goodooga which was once called “the most boring town in Australia”. There were also T-shirts for sale that carried the slogan “Where the bloody hell is Goodooga?” We will pass through Goodooga, back onto the bitumen and head to Lightning Ridge. Overnight at Lightning Ridge at the Brooks residence (either house or yard, your choice).

 Day 11 Lightning Ridge

 We can spend the day relaxing at Lightning Ridge, visiting some of the unique sites and opal mines.

 Although there are lots of opal mining towns in Australia there are four which have become household names - Coober Pedy, Andamooka, White Cliffs and Lightning Ridge. These are the four which seem to hold some mystery and interest to people who live in the cities. They are wild and unruly places surrounded by a moonscape of mullock humps where people fight against horrendous climatic conditions in their search for precious gemstones. They are, as one observer noted 'monuments to the tenacious optimism of all mankind'.

 Of these four towns Lightning Ridge is particularly special because it is now the only place in Australia and one of the few places in the world where the precious and highly prized black opal is found. Unlike ordinary opals the black opal has carbon and iron oxide trace elements in it producing a very dark stone which still has hints of blue, green and red.

 Lightning Ridge has a population of about 1200 which is supplemented by over 80 000 visitors who arrive every year to either try their luck at fossicking or to see what an outback mining town is really like. This influx of tourists means that this once rough and ready town now boasts a number of good quality motels, an endless array of souvenir and gift shops, some good restaurants, and a veneer of civilisation.

 The first European to discover these coloured stones was Charles Nettleton in 1902. Nettleton had been an opal miner at White Cliffs but his luck and money ran out and he moved to Queensland. Convinced that there were more opals across the border he returned to New South Wales and started seriously prospecting on a hill, later known as Nettleton's Hill, on Angledool Station. This was to become the site of Lightning Ridge. The Lands Department later gazetted it as Warrangulla and it was known as that until World War 1 when it reverted to its original name.

A number of famous stones have been found at Lightning Ridge, including the 822 g 'Big Ben' and the 'Flame Queen' which was sold for £80 because the miner hadn't eaten a proper meal for three weeks.

 Day 12 Lightning Ridge - Dubbo

 Our last day will involve travelling to Dubbo via Grawin, Glengarry and Sheepyard. These are three unique opal mining centres that will give you a real indication of the conditions under which some opal miners live. After visiting these centres we will travel to Walgett via Cumborah and then straight down the highway to Dubbo. This will conclude our Corner Country Adventure.