October 9-11, 2018
Heading slowly Northwards we took a 100+km drive from Condobolin to the small community of Albert which has only a Garage and Hotel. The Albert Rabbit Trap Hotel was the inspiration for Eric Jolliffe (link to Wikipedia) of Saltbush Bill fame. The small town has only around a dozen houses and lies between Tullamore and Trangie on Dandaloo Road which connects The Bogan Way with the Mitchell Highway.
The Hotel has eight powered camping sites across the road from the front door where there are a small number of transportable rooms as well, often used by mine workers in the area. At the rear of this collection is an open space between this, and the railway line.
Campers are free to use this area by permission of the hotel as the actual Rest Area is a no camping one. It obviously pays off as I think every one of our fellow campers visited the pub for either beers or a meal.
While our photos were taken when we arrived, and there were no other caravans, we did in fact have company for each of our three nights here; two vans, then 3 vans, then 3 vans and a bus on the last night; some in the paid and some in the free camp. On our first night we had a very pleasant meal of Fish and Chips in the Hotel in the company of Geoff and Denise from Albury.
At the front of the accommodation area is a Rest Area with a small Public Toilet block which actually has a hot shower (provided as much as anything for passing truckies as this is a rural road train route); unfortunately when Keith went for a shower the LPG for the Hot Water had run out (it was replenished next day by Council after we advised one of the locals in the pub).
The silos behind the camp area were built in 1966 and are still managed by Graincorp, but don’t appear to have been in use for some time with a flock of pigeons having taken up residence in the silo, and the buildings and structures looking a little worse for wear.
