Heritage Centre and …Yes! – Thompson Street, Milparinka – John Thompson was the first to discover Gold around here
May 15-18
Leaving Broken Hill was the final test for our second new fridge… and yes it was still going at the end of the run to Packsaddle, heading North for Tibooburra. Finally!
On the way North the Highway passes over the Barrier Range where there is a new Lookout close to the old settlement of Euriowie with some great views of this wonderful open grazing country, unfortunately with much less livestock than all this area used to carry in the boom days of the wool industry. Now there are more goats and Emus than sheep!
Information Signs at Barrier Range Lookout (Click to enlarge and read):
The Silver City Highway is marked on many maps as being a sealed road all the way to Tibooburra but in reality is only, at best, 75% bitumen. There are several sections of gravel, between 2 and 10km long starting adjacent to the Packsaddle rest Area where we stayed for the night. At 177km it was a good late morning run for us and had plenty of space with one other van already there, followed by a Motorhome and a Camper Trailer by late afternoon.
The next day we headed for Milparinka, a further 120km and only 40km short of our ultimate destination of Tibooburra.
Milparinka was the first area in this region where Gold was discovered in the late 1870s but had already become an important area in 1845 when Sturt was forced to camp at nearby Depot Glen for more than six months as it was the only supply of water left in a drought season.
This was later visited by other explorers including Ernest Giles. While here Sturt’s second in command James Poole died of scurvy and is buried nearby. Mount Poole overlooking the gravesite and the nearby station are named in his memory.
The town of Milparinka, once a community of several hundred with four hotels (of which only The Albert remains), Police Station and Courthouse, Bank, Butcher, Pharmacy, School and several “General Stores/Warehouses. Today only the Albert Hotel and Heritage Centre (Police Station, Cells and Courthouse) remain of all the original buildings. There are two more recent houses and some remains of the Post Office and Bank but in a poor state of repair.
The Heritage Centre supplies a campground area at the rear for $10/night and has toilets, fireplaces and rubbish bins and plenty of space. When we arrived there was a group of 8 vans that we had seen earlier in the week and after that only a couple of others for the next two days. Intending to stay 2 nights in order to go and look at Depot glen we stayed a third night after light rain.
