Inland And Outback

You travel across a lot of bitumen exploring outback NSW but it is a rewarding destination. Every town has history, sights, amenities and local ‘characters’. The tip is to take the time to stop and discover, rather than treating places like fuel and snack stops.

Cowra is a peaceful town on the Lachlan River. In 1944 it was the scene of a Japanese POW camp escape that resulted in the deaths of 231 prisoners and four Australian soldiers. The POW interpretive display is a must. The area produces excellent food and wine – drop in and say hi to my mate Lovo at the Quarry Restaurant. The locals have nicknamed him ‘Fawlty’, which could explain why his wife Ann looks after front-of-house and he looks after the kitchen.

Wagga Wagga means ‘place of many crows’. It’s the State’s largest inland city but still acts like a big, welcoming country town. There are a number of Aboriginal town names that have this repetitive nature of description. Spike Milligan once mused about his mother’s town of Woy Woy, “which Woy means deep and which Woy means water?”

Like Cowra, Hay saw its population swell by 3000 during World War II with a POW camp. It’s a town full of historic heritage buildings and home to the Australian Shearer’s Hall of Fame.

Griffith is the main town in the Riverina and the centre for food and wine – hence the many good restaurants. While the Hunter is thought of as the State’s main wine-producing region, 60 per cent of the State’s grapes are grown in the Riverina.

Griffith, incidentally, was designed by Walter Burley Griffin of Canberra fame, but the similarity in names is a coincidence.

The town was named after Sir Arthur Griffith, the first Minister for Public Works in the NSW government.

The regional centre for western New South Wales is Dubbo and is home to the terrific open-range Western Plains Zoo.

A pushbike is a pleasant way to get around. The Old Dubbo Gaol with its original gallows and solitary confinement cells is also worth a visit.

Tamworth is more than a little bit country.

Every January hats and boots from all over flock to the Australian Country Music Festival. Year round you can check out the 12-metre-high Golden Guitar and the Country Music Hands of Fame.

An hour away, Armidale, is a little bit ‘city’, being a university and cathedral town.

There are lots of National Trust-listed buildings and the New England Regional Art Museum has Australia’s most valuable regional collection of art, The Hinton Collection. Forty kilometres east is Oxley Wild Rivers National Park and the dramatic 220-metre Wollomombi Falls.

OK. Turn left and go west a few hours.....

Take a self-guided tour around the old sandstone buildings of Wilcannia and stroll upstream to the paddle-steamer wharf. Thanks to its channel water supply, Cobar is a little oasis. The Great Western pub has the longest lace verandah in NSW. Anywhere ‘Back of Bourke’ is called the outback but I guess that depends on which way you’re facing. Bourke itself has fine examples of colonial architecture and you can hop on a paddle-steamer here as well. Drop in to the cemetery and pay your respects to Fred Hollows. He may have been brash, he may have been grumpy, but the man was a saint.

Check out the Cobb & Co Coach Museum in Nyngan, fish the Barwon and Namoi Rivers in Walgett and, if you’re travelling in September, take a punt on the Come By Chance picnic races. Fossick for opals in Lightning Ridge, tour an underground mine and, to rejuvenate those weary travelling bones, head to Moree for an artesian spa bath.

And last, but not least, Broken Hill, a town that’s not really on the way to anywhere, but a great destination and so far flung it’s in a different time zone. It’s a mining town, but that’s only part of it. There are beautiful, historic buildings, Aboriginal sites, a surreal landscape that’s uniquely Australian and a thriving artist community. There are more than 20 galleries in town along with the Flying Doctor Service and the School of the Air. Silverton, 27 kilometres north-west is, naturally enough, where silver was discovered.

The 1880 Silverton Hotel has been in more movies than Tom Hanks. There’s a heritage walking trail, a gaol and pioneer museum, and you can skirt around the outskirts of town on a camel. Camels, I would imagine, are a legacy of the Afghan community. There’s a Muslim mosque in Buck Street, Broken Hill that was built in 1891, 110 years before we heard the word ‘Tampa’ (for international readers, Tampa was the boat at the centre of Australia’s policy to turn away Afghan refugees in the lead up to the November 2001 election).

OK, now we do another left turn and head south to the Victorian border...

Albury, on the Murray and the border has the original Ettamogah Pub, Ettamogah Wildlife Sanctuary, the Hume Weir Trout Farm for feeding and fishing, and Lake Hume, a huge artificial lake. The Hume Highway pretty much follows the route taken by pioneers Hume and Hovell and I’ve occasionally wondered whether Hovell was a shrinking violet or not that well liked. Hume got his name on a highway and a lake, Hovell got a street in Albury and a creek near Yass. You can drop in on Hamilton Hume in Yass Cemetery.

Snow-bunnies and piste-artists may have noted I have yet to mention one of NSW popular winter attractions, the ski fields of the Snowy Mountains. To put it simply - tried it once, fell over a lot, got wet, caught a cold, not fussed. I’m told that Perisher and Thredbo have the best variety of slopes, Mount Selwyn is terrific for families and beginners, and Thredbo has the nightlife.

I can recommend a visit in summer though, for the cool climate, the wildflowers and the trout fishing.

The Alpine Way has superb scenery, you can take horse-riding ‘Man from Snowy River’ tours from Adaminaby, home of the Big Trout, and Yarrangobilly Caves are arguably the most spectacular in the country because of their frozen waterfalls and underground pools. There’s a naturally formed thermal pool for year-round swimming.

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