Bucketloads of history in Cobar

The Cobar mines memorial. Picture: Brian Johnston Source: Supplied

The Great Western Hotel, one of Cobar's many heritage buildings. Picture: Brian Johnston Source: Supplied

YOU'LL find 7000 people at any one time in Cobar Shire, which is about the same size as Denmark.

In other words, most of it is a whole lot of empty, interspersed with a great deal of nothing.

But while there mightn't be many people around, more of them are willing to give you the time of day than you'll ever come across in the capital cities.

They're also easy to meet, since nearly everybody lives in the welcoming town of Cobar.

At first glance, Cobar looks like one of those places you could just blow through in a cloud of dust.

But like many an outback town, it has sweeping stories of opportunism, resilience and eccentricity in its battered buildings and rugged faces.

And as I also discovered, it has the best chicken parmigiana south of the Darling River.

You can enjoy that at the Empire Hotel, a now modest building that replaces the original colonial hotel that fell down in one of Cobar's bust cycles.

While it doesn't live up to its grand name architecturally, its servings of pub grub are truly imperial.

The parmi is the size of a Frisbee and the lamb shanks look as if they've come from a dinosaur.

Both are dished up by foreign backpackers, as chatty as everyone else in town. And if Cobar's good enough for a Frenchman, who am I to argue?

A post-lunch walk shows that, while the original Empire may have gone, plenty of colonial buildings remain from the post-1870s gold rush era.

A schoolhouse, churches, Cornish miners' cottages, and the grand civic buildings along Barton and Linsley streets are all worth a gander.

They're a reminder of how wealthy Cobar once was. In the 19th century, it extracted the equivalent of $7 billion of gold in today's money from its mines.

Like tree rings that vary with the good times, you can trace Cobar's booms in its suburban housing.

The 1930s were rich, the 1950s bust, and today the mineral wealth is rolling in once more.

On the edge of town, Great Cobar Heritage Museum gives a compact glimpse into life in the old days.

It shows how ingenious European settlers were in using scarce materials. They created rugs out of corn bags, furniture from kerosene tins and toys from scrap metal.

Much later, when the party phone line came to town, 15 properties had access to a single telephone wire.

You can try using one by winding the handle, checking the line, and hoping someone picks up in the next room.

This being Cobar, someone surely will, and a conversation ensues.

If you care to stretch those long-journey legs, walk from the museum down the back of the golf course to shady Newey Watersports Reserve.

The lake is good for bird-watching, as some 200 species have been spotted in Cobar.

Otherwise, hoof up Fort Bourke outlook for a view into New Cobar Gold Mine, an open-cast mine of dusty pink rock where massive trucks lumber below, small as beetles.

It's Australia's mining boom in action, and a new chapter in the history of Cobar.

Better yet, down at the Bowling & Golf Club, there are plenty of miners happy to talk about it over a beer.

Funny that. Cobar Shire might be empty, but it's never short of conversation.

The writer was a guest of Destination NSW and Tri State Safaris.

Go2 - COBAR

Getting there: Rex Airlines operates flights from Sydney to Dubbo, a 3 1/2-hour drive from Cobar. Ph 13 17 13.

Staying there: Cobar Central Motor Inn is a new 36-unit motel. Ph 6830 2000.

Eating there: Empire Hotel serves honest servings of pub food. Ph 6836 2725.

Getting around: Tri State Safaris operates tours in the NSW and SA outback. Ph (08) 8088 2389.

More: Visit cobar.nsw.gov.au/tourism, ph 6836 2448.\

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