Lightning Ridge to St George

Way back when, like in about 2002, us and two other couples headed off on a motorcycling holiday, towing trailers behind our bikes with our camping gear.  On that trip we also stayed at the caravan park in Gulargambone.  This was way before caravanning became trendy and way before Gular had any murals or public art works.  At that time, the caravan park was council run and the only other person there was the on site caretaker.  Our enduring memory of that visit is entering the shower stalls and hearing all the spiders webs breaking.

Why did we camp there?  Well, not all that long before our visit the federal government started to establish Rural Transaction Centres to provide a one stop shop for government and financial services in the small towns that were losing so much.  The credit union I worked for at the time provided the financial services to Eugowra, Trundle and Gulargambone.  I had travelled to Eugowra and Trundle for work, but had not visited Gular.  I wanted to pop in and see the RTC and visit the girls I spoke with over the phone so frequently.  I was happy to see on our latest visit that the same institution is still providing the financial services to Gular.

From Gular we went to Coonamble, where the local paper took our photo when we were parked int the main street, and then onto Lightning Ridge, which was our first visit to the area.  Quite a bit has changed since then.

From there we continued north, stopping to take a photo of us all under the Welcome to Queensland sign, before driving through the tiny village of Hebel, then turning left to Goodooga, which is back in New South Wales, and on to Brewarrina and Bourke.  We didn’t even stop in Queensland.  The kids at the Hebel school gave us a big wave as we rode past.

Why am I telling you this?  Well, to say that basically, from this point on, we are covering new ground on our travels.

This time we stopped at Hebel and had a bit of a look around.  There is a bit of a story about the little town.  A few years back, the fellow running both the pub and the general store across the road just walked away from the businesses, as they weren’t doing very well.  

A local farmer decided to take on both businesses and try to save them, as they are the heart of the community.  They spruced things up, built some flash cabins out the back of the pub, thanks to having a builder son, and things are booming.  

As you can see, it was another gorgeous day, weather wise.

It was quite a bit too early for a beer, but we still had a chance to have look around the beaut old pub.

We then popped over to the General Store.

It’s a lovely old building.

The post office is housed in one corner.

Apparently, they are famous for their home made pies, but it was too soon after breakfast for one of those.  However, it wasn’t too early for another coffee and the sign outside said they have “French custard pie with a touch of caramel”.  It’s never too early to try that.  Yummo!  No photo, we scoffed it.

Anyway, there was also a mural and a couple of old drays to have a look at.

Of course, we had to get a photo of the van in front of the pub.  During our short visit, lots of vans either drove straight through or stopped for a quick photo before continuing.  We are glad we had the time to stop and have a bit better look around.

The next little town we visited was Dirranbandi.  My cousin and her husband used to farm near here, but I have never visited.  Our first impressions were of a nice tidy little town.

The railway line runs parallel to the main street.  However, the trains stopped running in 1993.  The pretty station building is still there.

There were a couple of the old railway cranes there and of course Mick had to have a play.

Parklands now run between the main road and the railway line, dotted with numerous metal art works.

A feature is the cut our depicting the Charge of Beersheba.

We noticed a small statue of an athlete.  Zoom in to read all about Tom Dancey, who was an aboriginal runner who won the Stawell Gift foot race.

We had been told to visit two businesses in town.  Firstly, we had to visit the Three Rivers Meats butchery.  This business is also owned by the same farmer that has taken on the Hebel Hotel and General Store.  He wanted an outlet to sell his meat in a paddock to plate situation.  He bought the butchers in Dirranbandi for that purpose, selling his Angus beef and dorper lamb as well a locally sourced chicken and pork from Nyngan.  We had been told that their snags are pretty good, but being Monday morning, they hadn’t made any as yet.  It was good to see that there were four blokes working there.  A great employer for a small town.  They also have a shop in Lightning Ridge these days.  Funnily enough, when they asked where we are from, one of those butchers grew up about half an hour away from here.  Now what would have taken him to Dirranbandi we wonder?

We settled for some lamb koftas, which is nearly a sausage, isn’t it.  They cooked up rather well that night.

The other business that several people mentioned was the bakery.  Unfortunately, we weren’t able to buy any bread, as their baker was away that week, but we tried their pies for an early lunch, sitting under an huge old Morton Bay fig tree, and they were not bad at all. 

Time to get back on the road.  We were starting to see quite a bit of cotton being grown.  The harvest is in full swing, with so many colourful bales in the distance, but hard to capture in a photo while driving along.  The famous Cubby Station is located near Dirranbandi.

I’ll leave it there and do a separate post on St George.