Rocks, Greek cafes and plunging temperatures



The glorious old Deepwater Railway station.

We left the balmy coastal climes behind as we headed west from Lismore on June 30. It was rather nippy when we reached Tenterfield, and by the time we stopped at Deepwater for lunch (between Tenterfield and Glen Innes), John was forced to change his cargo shorts for jeans, don even more vests and jackets and put on his ugg boots.

It was 11 C, so our phones told us, and blowing a 35km/h WSW wind. Freezing!

We pulled off the highway to the old Deepwater Railway Station, long unused, but restored with a Bicentennial grant and looking quite smart, apart from the grass growing between the rails next to the platform.

Once we turned west at Glen Innes, we knew we were in for some cold, bright weather. West of Inverell we stopped at Cranky Rock Recreation Reserve, just east of Warialda. It was a glorious bit of bush camping, beside the Cranky Rock jumble of huge rocks and a creek, with a caretaker and only

Just some of the jumbled rocks at Cranky Rock.

 

 

 

about 4 other campers there.  It was about 4C the next morning but our diesel heater took care of that.

We followed the short walking trail to the top of the rocks on the next day, enjoyed the emus and kangaroos who wandered into the camping area, along with four tame peacocks and a flock of king parrots that came every afternoon to be fed at the caretaker’s cottage. We had a glorious campfire on the second night, and when I peeked out the window around 2am it was still glowing red.

 

Emus strolled around Cranky Rock reserve.

On July 2, we woke to 5C inside so it was probably about 2C outside. We set off for Warialda where we restocked some groceries, then headed south to Bingara. On the way we detoured east to the Myall Creek Massacre Memorial.

This is such a sad place, where 28 Aboriginal women, children and old men were massacred by a raiding party of stockmen and a squatter in 1888. But a local landowners and various others insisted that justice be done and seven men were eventually tried and hanged for the crime.

Bingara itself was a delight. We joined a party being taken on a tour of the huge old Roxy Theatre. It was built in 1936 as a art deco cinema by three Greek immigrants who also had the cafe next door and opened a guesthouse behind. They thought the people from the district would come into town to see a movie, stay the night, and need dinner and breakfast.



Our guide at the Roxy Theatre, with the set for a play about
to be performed .

This all worked well until around 1958 when cinema started dying, but the Gwydir Council has managed to get around $1.5 million in grants to restore the theatre, now used once again as a cinema, as well as a performance space (there was a set for a play in situ when we visited); as well as the Greek cafe next door, with booths and freestanding furniture built to match what would have been there in the 1930s. The terrazzo floor is original, as well as one set of furniture. There’s also a museum commemorating the role Greek-run cafes played in Australian history.

Before we reached Narrabri for the night, we visited some landscape etched out of glacial rocks, and then hiked about 1km from the highway to see Sawn Rocks, a fabulous natural volcanic arrangement.

Sawn Rocks

We spent the night at the Narrabri Showgrounds and were fascinated to see dozens of matching tents, slowly being disassembled. The caretaker told us there had been 80 there for a Keith Urban concert the previous weekend and they were now being taken away.

We made it to Bourke the next afternoon, after lunch by the Barwon River at Brewarrina . . . pelicans and whistling kites let us know it was the outback. From Narrabri to Bourke, and particularly around Wee Waa and Burren Junction, there were cotton bolls by the side of the road, where they had fallen from the big trucks carting recently-harvested cotton for processing. It is broadacre farming on an enormous scale, with the ploughed paddocks stretching to the horizon and beyond, and huge dams irrigating it all.

Flocks of emus were the major wildlife we saw in the latter stages of that drive to Bourke, and after the cotton petered out, it was back to sheep and cattle.

More about what we do in Bourke in the next post.