We’ve arrived in Dubbo, our base for the next few days. Dubbo is the lands of the Tubba-Gah people of the Wiradjuri nation, and we acknowledge that this is their land, and we’re grateful for the chance to share it for the next few days.
With only a shorter drive on the cards today, we had a slower start to the morning. We packed up in our motel room and headed back toward the eastern end of town where the Cobar Miners Memorial area is. It’s a lovely, well-made area that commemorates the lives lost in Cobar from mining, and tells a lot of people’s stories as well. We spent some time wandering through the memorial itself, as well as all the different mining equipment and information about Cobar mining that sits around the park too.
A coffee and some hot chocolates were purchased for all for the drive east, and we set out for Nyngan. After about 90 minutes, we headed straight for the essential stop in Nyngan: the Big Bogan!
Just down the road is the Nyngan Museum, housed in the old railway station. We spent the next hour or so wandering through and learning plenty about Nyngan. There was plenty of information about people and industries in Nyngan, and of course a whole section on the huge flood in 1990 that put 95% of all houses and businesses under water. There was some great information on the train station and train services that ran through Nyngan as well – apparently the town was known for having one of the more impressive refreshment rooms!
By this time it was essentially lunchtime, so we decided to enjoy some pies and sausage rolls from the local bakery/cafe for lunch, and kick the footy around for a bit as well. Of course, being in the central west, lunch came with a bottle of Splashe Cola! (And their creaming soda for Debbie.)
The trip to Dubbo was a comfortable drive – which came with a brief stop off in Narromine when we spotted the Glenn McGrath statue!
We pulled into Dubbo and decided to head straight for the Western Plains Cultural Centre. We had just walked in before they let us know that they had to close up early because of an alarm somewhere. But they were so kind and let us have a quick look at the exhibition by Yayoi Kusama – a Japanese artist known for her polka dot and mirror art installations. It was a very cool box that you stuck your heard into and saw polka dot pumpkins and mirrors! Hopefully we’ll get a chance at some point in the next couple of days to drop back into the Cultural Centre and see some of the other things they have on display.
We’ve settled into a lovely little cottage in Dubbo that will be home for the next 3 nights while we do some adventures from here.
