20240901 NSW Cumborah

20240901 Ya! I’m a bit excited as we head inland to the pubs in the scrub, Grawin, Glengarry and Sheepyard, the three Pubs are located 70 kilometres west of Lightning Ridge so off we go turning onto Llanillo Road, some parts good and some parts not so good and don’t even get me started on the cattle grids, OMG we were lifting off our seats. We finally hit the dirt road and made in about 2kmls in and had to turn around, the road was corrugated and shook the shit out of the van, Not Happy Jan. We stopped for lunch at Cumborah and decided to camp the night.

The Goats monopolise the grazing ground out this way.

I managed some fly by shoot of the scenery as we passed through these outback areas.

No sign of any dirt road yet, just wide open space and not a house or traffic in sight, absolutely blissful.

And we hit the dirt road, fingers crossed the road is good but by the look of that corrugation it doesn’t look promising.

There are signs scattered all along the route to keep our interests.

Each sign represents the Pubs in the Scrub and what they have to offer.

Funny, they all offer cold beers 🍻 

Back on the bitumen before hitting the dirt and we keep going, I’m thinking we should have stopped here.

Well we made it this far but unfortunately the road was too much for the old girl so we had to turn around, with over 90 pound pressure in these tyres it’s just too rough, and yes I was very disappointed, no fun for me today.☹️ 

We were getting hungry & spotted a little town called Cumborah so we stopped for lunch, it was in a park and their were other campers, we might stay the night so we set up and settled in.

Cumborah is an English translation of ‘sweet water’ with small springs bubbling up out of the sandstone. The Narran River runs through these lands and the legends vary from “Wirrangan” (clever men) to giant Crocodiles! OMG This is the story I was reading in Lightning Ridge, it was such a cool story. 

Cumborah was proclaimed a town in 1896 with a Cobb and Co. staging post and resting place for drovers bringing livestock from the north, the town was once thriving and had a saddlery, hotel, post office, school, police station, sawmill, general store and butchers and cricket and tennis flourished bringing farming families together.

It wasn’t until I was doing my blog that I realised there was a bloody pub in Cumborah that offers free camping, shoot me now.

The monument commemorates 100 years of the settlement of Cumborah from 1896 to 1996.

Cumborah Hall is apparently the hub of social activities for young and old; farmers who play the gamble of flood and drought to produce beef, lamb, wool, wheat and chickpeas and opal miners who search for the elusive and exquisite black opal, only this hall didn’t look like its been used in years.

20240902 Leaving Cumborah towards Walgett when we noticed a river that could potentially have yabbies so we turned off to check out. Here we were standing on the edge of The Darling River system that covers over one million square kilometres (14% of Australia) flowing south from the Culgoa and Barwon River junction. From its source in Queensland to its mouth south-east of Adelaide, it is 3,370km long. The River was once an integral part of the lives of many Aboriginal people who lived along it and continues to hold great significance to Aboriginal people today.

The Darling River as we see it today, still a very important river to our farmers and eco system but without the busy paddle steamers.

The old days with the Paddle Steamers and this photo looks like it was taken in the exact same spot as the photo above.🤷‍♀️

This was nearly our camp for a couple of days on the river next to this tree with all the knob's, but it was too difficult to get down to the water so we left for Walgett.

The End