The Cobar Visitor Centre didn’t open until 8.30 am so we had a slow start this morning, refuelled at the Caltex next to the caravan park then had our choice of Karavan parking spots at the Visitor Centre.  Cobar have really done well in catering to the tourist trade, the Visitor Centre is in the magnificent old two story CSA (Cornish, Scottish, Australian) Mine managers residence.  The shire bought the residence from CSA for the princely sum of $1.  The Visitor Centre function is very small, just at the entrance, the rest of the building is devoted to the museum, which is one of the best local town museums we have come across.  We thoroughly recommend having a look through, it took us over two hours to go through (we could have stayed longer).  They have an interesting article on how women should look after their husbands when it is hot – very relevant & practical.  There was also an old statement from the gold rush days where one hotel proudly claimed that “they endeavoured to wash their sheets once every seven weeks” (pity being there on the sixth week in summer).

The museum takes you through the mining industry, history & how this shaped the town of Cobar, the issues they have had with the lack of water plus the sheep industry & the current environmental issues they are having.  Outside they have a restored train carriage, which was the Nursing Mothers Travelling Clinic.  There are lots of mining & farm memorabilia as well.  The path has great information boards about the history of a lot of the items on display outside, then there is the first open-cut mine out the back, dug by hand with pick & shovel plus a large pool of water, which is around 450 metres deep.  This is the top of a flooded mine shaft where a lot of the locals use to go swimming.  Across the road is a poppet head from an old mine plus an old gold stamper that was used to crush the ore.

There is one fascinating story about one of the old residents of Cobar, when applying for citizenship the magistrate asked him a series of questions to determine his age.  When he was asked how many children he had he replied “three”, when asked where they were he replied “dead”, when asked how they died he replied “old age”.  At 103 years of age he was charged with killing a person & sentenced to jail, at 109 years of age he was given a 38kg box of food, which he hefted up onto his shoulder, slipped on the wooden boardwalk & broke his hip.  He died 6 months later, he didn’t recover from the injury.  You will have to read the rest of the story yourself, it is fascinating.

Next up was a stop at the magnificent church in town, it dominates the skyline with a tall square steeple. The Great Western Hotel built in 1898 must have the longest cast iron lacework verandah I have ever seen.  The Court House & the Police Station next door are also great examples of colonial architecture.  The main street of Cobar has a lot of old buildings in good condition, the mining wealth appears to be treating the town well, it looks prosperous.

On the long straight road again we passed the Florida Rest Area, it certainly looks a lot different than the Florida we remember, this must be the Australian version, a dusty carpark next to the highway sandwiched against the railway line.  As we crossed the bridge into Nyngan (after making sure there were no horses, obviously they haven’t changed the sign since last century) the river appeared to be in flood, it was overflowing it’s banks, there was certainly a lot of water around, we had a few years of drought so it is great to see. Nyngan does not appear to be as busy or prosperous as Cobar.

The countryside gradually improved in fertility with more wheat farms & more healthy sheep visible before we turned down the isolated unmarked (no signposts) dirt road to the “Ulingar” homestead where my friend Chris & his wife Gill live.  They are on a massive farm that grows wheat, canola, chick peas & cotton.  After Chris got home from work he drove us around the farm a bit to show us some of the crops & the full water storage dams. The farm has been in drought for a few years so it is wonderful to see so much water & everything looking a beautiful lush green. The big dam is 1 ½ kilometres long & he has a couple of Hobie cats on it so that they can sail.  The dams are also home to an amazing number of waterbirds. The sunset was very nice over the farm before we escaped the mosquitos & went inside.  There has been so much rain, water is laying around everywhere so the mosquitos are breeding up quickly.  For 20 years every July we have been together with Chris, Gill & their sons Craig & Ben at Minnie Water on a fishing holiday but this year we missed out so it was great catching up.  We have known the boys since they were tiny babies & now they are tall handsome young men.  Gill spoiled us with a very tasty roast lamb dinner.  We washed dinner down with a very pleasant Taylors shiraz before going off to a late nights sleep.