Central west NSW is a treasure trove of country hospitality and history
A FEW hours from Sydney, central west NSW is a treasure trove of good food, country hospitality and the historic home of bush rangers and hot air ballooning.
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ONLY a city slicker would hit a country road with just a quarter of a tank of petrol. Accustomed to finding a station every few kilometres in Sydney, I was unprepared for the more than 70km of winding country roads coming out of Hill End without a servo in site. Pulling up at a Shell near Bathurst with the petrol gauge (and my anxiety) lit up red, I learned a valuable lesson.
My daughters and I were on the road for a long weekend in the NSW Central West, our first stop Bathurst, the gateway to the great west and an easy three-hour drive from Sydney.
Our home for the first night is the self-contained Mews Apartments in the heart of town. After a delicious dinner at the Parkview Restaurant — conveniently located in the same heritage-listed building as our apartment — I buckle to pressure and head to Annie’s Old Fashioned Ice Cream Parlour, which even at 9pm has a queue out the door.
The next morning, we visit The Hub for a hearty breakfast of corn fritters with salsa and dukkah, then head to the Fossil and Mineral Museum in town. The girls’ initial disinterest at visiting a museum is quickly turned around when they discover some cool finds; the egg of an elephant bird, the tooth of an extinct giant shark and dinosaur eggs.
Housed in an old building that served as a school for 140 years, the museum owes much to Warren Sommerville, a farmer from nearby Orange, who, in the late 1990s, donated the significant collection he’d started as a child.
We farewell Bathurst after just 24 hours and head an hour away to Hill End.
If you were a school kid in NSW in the past few decades, chances are you visited the Hill End Historic Site with your school. We arrive at History Hill education centre and meet our guides for the afternoon, Malcolm Drinkwater and his son, Jhob. The passionate local historians created a museum filled with more than 10,000 gold rush and bushranging artefacts, including steam engines, gold scales and mining tools.
They even built a mine that extends 175m underground so tourists can get a feel of what the miners experienced back when Hill End was a gold rush town in the 1870s.
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Jhob takes us through the old ghost town, which at its height in 1872 had a population of 30,000, more than 50 registered hotels and was said to rival Sydney.
The Royal Hotel is the only one still open, with the rest of the buildings abandoned shells and lending the sleepy town an eerie feel. Significant deposits of gold were found here, the largest specimen discovered in the October 1872 mine measuring 1.5m and weighing 285kg. It took eight men and a horse to bring it to the surface and was the world’s largest nugget.
We drive just out of town to a creek where Jhob teaches us how to pan for gold. We learn how to wash the deposits in our pan, removing the top layers of larger rocks and debris until just a thin layer of soil remains. We find tiny specks of gold gleaming through, proving there is still some left, though Jhob assures us the days of finding nuggets are long gone.
As the sun starts to set, we leave Hill End, bound for Canowindra, about two and a half hours away (and a little longer after our detour to Bathurst for petrol).
We check in at Marlow House, which resembles a rambling Queenslander with a wraparound veranda. Built in 1900, it sleeps seven people and can be hired as a whole house.
Canowindra is known for its bushranging past and, more recently, as the hot air ballooning capital of Australia. We are booked for a dawn ride the next morning with Graham and Jan Kerr who have run Balloon Joy Flights for 34 years. I feel like we’re in good hands.
Graham explains the first modern hot air balloons were flown here in the early 1960s, homemade by engineering students from Sydney University, the first one held together with Scotch tape. The region offers perfect flying conditions with reliable calm winds due to the fact Canowindra sits in an artificial basin surrounded by low mountains.
A champagne breakfast is included in the price of your flight.
Our early start means we have the rest of the day to explore the region, so we head to nearby Cowra to check out the 5ha Japanese Gardens, the biggest in the Southern Hemisphere. The peaceful rolling hills, manicured hedges and trickling ponds are in stark contrast to the town’s history as a Japanese prisoner of war camp during World War II, when more than 230 escapees were killed during the Cowra Breakout. Today it is a symbol of peace, reconciliation and good will.
Back in Canowindra, we meet local historian Craig Lawler from Blind Freddy’s Bushranging Tours. Standing in the town’s curved main road, Gaskill St, Craig’s impressive narrative paints a picture of what it was like to live in the times of Ben Hall, Frank Gardiner and co. The men, who became a symbol of rebelliousness and mateship have developed an affectionate place in our history, but Lawler reminds us they were highwaymen, horse thieves and robbers — sometimes squatting in the homes of local families and generally misbehaving in the streets.
After our tour, we come upon Finns Store, originally an old general store and now a cafe and gift emporium. It’s the kind of place that country towns are made of — delicious homemade food, good coffee and the charming company of owners, Geoff and Jackie Yeo, who welcome us in like old friends.
Jackie keeps the girls occupied with cupcakes and hot chocolates while Geoff takes me into the back area of the cafe and reveals the old store ledgers dating back 100 years and photos of original owner TJ Finn and his family.
It’s the perfect last stop on our country weekend. Well, not the last stop, that would be the petrol station to fill up before the four-hour drive back to Sydney.