Residents in drought-ravaged towns along the Darling River are showing the resilience of their forefathers and turning to tourism. As Kris Ashton found, they have plenty to offer

You expect to see weird stuff in Lightning Ridge – houses made of beer cans, outdoor toilets with no doors, red rattlers turned into hotels – but the new diving facility has even seasoned travel writers agape.

The world-class structure, with 3m, 5m and 10m platforms, should be complete by the time you read this. Some Beijing officials have already expressed interest in using it as a training camp for China’s Olympic diving team.

The aquatic complex, which also includes a wave machine and an Olympic swimming pool, is a shrine to community spirit. Some schoolkids did the fundraising, while generous donations of time and equipment eventually saw it completed for a tenth of what it might cost in Sydney.

The man in charge of its construction, Richard Mallouk, has some things to say about Walgett Council and its alleged interference with his plans. Our guide around the Ridge, Chuck from Platform 1, asks him to repeat his politically incorrect opinions for some stragglers.

“I already told you what they are,” he says in his thick Mediterranean accent.
Lightning Ridge might seem a strange place to start the Darling River Run, being a good 200km from the source at Brewarrina, but some things are too quirky to pass up. Chuck points out examples of what he calls “ridgidising”, where townsfolk repurpose everything from car doors to washing machines “because we don’t have a Bunnings here”.

The Ridge is still a blokey mining town, although tourists will be surprised how much there is to see and do now. One must is the Chambers of the Black Hand, where local man Ron Canlin has turned an old mine shaft into a chamber of artistic sculpture. There’s no rhyme or reason, just whatever takes his fancy, so you’ll see Tutankhamen’s tomb just down the passage from The Incredible Hulk and Spider-Man.

We stay overnight at Lightning Ridge Motel and then Chris Barratt, our Silver City Tours bus driver (or “coach captain” as he jokingly prefers to be called), gets us on our way. Chris spent 30 years mining silver in Broken Hill and now uses his broad knowledge and cheery demeanour to introduce visitors to his beloved outback. His nickname is Brolga – but more on that later.

Our next stop is Brewarrina, where we meet Garry Lord from the Local Aboriginal Land Council. Garry grew up on a Christian mission at Brewarrina, which closed in 1966 and has now become an historical site. Few buildings remain and those that do are skeletons, but Garry takes us through the grounds and down to the Barwon River, where he swam as a child. Surprisingly, he largely looks back on his time at the mission with fondness – while they were restricted to the grounds, the children were free to play and roam as they liked.
We drive to another part of the river, where there is a V-shaped formation of rocks – an ancient Aboriginal fish trap. “We think this could be the oldest man-made structure in the world,” Garry says, “but there’s no way to date it.”

We bid Garry farewell and then head on to Bourke, where we pass over the Darling River. Here, at least, tales of its demise have been greatly exaggerated. Our guide, Stuart Johnson, is a former cotton farmer and like Richard Mallouk he has some less than complimentary things to say about governments and their meddling. Restrictions on water usage have decimated Bourke’s farming population and Stuart’s hope is that tourism will keep the town afloat.

It certainly has no shortage of attractions. We’re given a sneak preview of the expanded Back o’ Bourke Exhibition Centre, due to open its doors in 2009, and we take a ride on the majestic old paddle steamer, the Jandra. As the steamer’s whistle blows, I’m transported back to the early 1900s when the Darling was still NSW’s freshwater lifeline and the Jandra carried wool from port to port. It doesn’t matter that I grew up in Sydney. This is my history. This, the outback, is in my blood.

You won’t find many luxury lodgings in western NSW, but Bourke Riverside Motel is an exception. Once a cluster of buildings that included the Telegraph Hotel, it has been converted into country- style lodgings and each room has its own character. I stay in the Bijou suite, which once housed travelling opera singers.

The next day we make a pitstop at the town of Louth, which consists of a hotel and a primary school and not much else. Shindy’s Inn is the quintessential outback pub: half a dozen locals lined up at the bar, schooners in hand. One of the photographers among us requests a photo. The grinning local tilts back his hat and drawls, “Gawd, I’m bloody famous.”

The men in our troupe (except Chris) knock back a glass of XXXX Gold and then we resume the unsealed road to Trilby Station, a working sheep and goat farm that also provides beds for travellers.

We stay in the old shearers’ quarters, and while it’s several grades above what the hard-bitten shearers would have had back when it was Dunlop Station in 1888, it’s a big step down from Bourke Riverside Motel. But that’s the point: this is a taste of authentic outback farming life.

The owner Liz Murray takes us to a small dam on her gigantic property (it can take a full day to drive its perimeter) where I pull out a yabby trap. There’s something delightfully bizarre about crouching in semi-arid flats and hauling in a net full of sea creatures. That night, they become an entrée in a sumptuous home-cooked feast.

This part of the world has been in a drought for five years; however, after our meal, rain starts to patter on the roof. The local farmers are delighted but Chris looks concerned. The road between Trilby and our next scheduled destination, Tilpa, is black soil. In rain that soil turns into “wet cement” – 4WDs have a tough time getting through it, much less a 20-seater bus. “If it keeps raining, we’ll probably have to go out to Cobar,” Chris says.

The rain eases off in Trilby, but the next morning there’s bad news: the road between Trilby and Tilpa (and ultimately Menindee) has been drenched. Our new route – a mix of bitumen and red earth, which does not get as gluggy as black – takes us 150km out of our way to Cobar and then another 460km along the Barrier Highway to Broken Hill.

For four or five hours I’m mesmerised at the outback scenery… but after seven or eight I’m rather glad to leave the bus and see Broken Hill’s newest attraction, the Big Seat, and take dinner at the Musician’s Club. Then it’s back in the bus for the final 100km to Menindee.

The next morning, a barbecue breakfast and a boat cruise around one of Menindee’s many lakes is an ideal way to recharge. We then visit the site where the ill-fated explorers Burke and Wills camped for a couple of months, before we continue south.

Lunch is at Pooncarie and in the afternoon we arrive at Mungo National Park. Mungo Lodge caused quite a stir among locals, who felt its lavishness wasn’t authentic ‘outback’, but you’ll get no complaints from me. Our guide, Graham Clarke, takes us on a walking tour of Mungo’s sandhills, where erosion is creating natural fossil sites. He has strong opinions on the earth’s climate and delivers them via diagrams in the sand. He, like everyone else I’ve met, is passionate about this part of the world.

Our group walks to the highest point among the hills. As the sun disappears, the flies buzz off and it’s the first time I’ve ever experienced perfect silence. No planes, no cars, no voices, not even the hum of a fluorescent light – just wordless awe at the pink-shaded sky and the first evening star.

Around midday the next day we hit Wentworth, which overlooks the junction of the Darling and Murray rivers. You can actually see a line where the two mighty waterways touch: the Darling’s muddy brown kissing the Murray’s bottle green. A lady from the Wentworth tourist office, Carmel Chapman, tells us the correct word is “confluence”.

You can walk onto a small island where the two rivers merge. The locals call it Spider Island. “We’re trying to come up with a better name for our anniversary celebrations,” Carmel says, referring to Wentworth’s sesquicentenary in 2009. Personally, I see nothing wrong with Spider Island. Why not call it what the locals call it?

In the evening we meet Chris’ boss and long-time friend, Wincen Cuy – also a retired Broken Hill miner. Over dinner at Wentworth Sporting Club, he lets Chris’ nickname out of the bag. Chris agrees (after much prodding) to explain how he got the moniker. Apparently he was shifting his lanky six-foot-four frame through some mud, and his mates looking on decided he resembled a brolga prowling a swamp. He’s nice enough to give us a demo.

We take the final leg to Mildura where a plane will whisk us to Melbourne. Crossing the border into Victoria, I think of something Chris – Brolga – said earlier as we passed through a struggling outback town: “You don’t appreciate these places until you lose them.”

The Darling River Run will put you in touch with the Australia that assorted historians and intellectuals want you to believe is a myth. White Australian history can and does sit proudly alongside the deep vein of indigenous history in the region. It’s a portal to who we were and who we are now.

Open Road March/April 2009.