Back o' Bourke

beyond the black stump

The phrase ‘Back o’ Bourke’ (meaning the outback, beyond the black stump) is deeply enmeshed in our language.

“If you know Bourke, you know Australia,” wrote Henry Lawson.

Captain Charles Sturt was the first european to visit the place where Bourke is now located. Sturt, together with Hamilton Hume discovered the Bogan River and then, early in 1829, the upper Darling, which Sturt named after the Governor of New South Wales, Sir Ralph Darling.

The first european to construct a building in the Bourke region was colonial surveyor and explorer Sir Thomas Mitchell in 1835. Following tensions with the local people Mitchell built a small stockade to protect his men and named it Fort Bourke after then Governor Richard Bourke.

This first crude structure became the foundation for a fledgling community with a small number of agricultural and livestock farms established in the region shortly afterwards. The area truly started to flourish when its location on the Darling River had it recognised as a key trade centre, linking the nearby outback agricultural industries with the east coast trade routes via the Darling River.

Bourke was surveyed for a town in 1869 and soon established itself as the outback trade hub of New South Wales with several transportation industries setting up branches in the town. To be continued …

A Darling discovery

Bourke's Darling river, a true national and international treasure!!!

The Darling river is totally unique from all other rivers in Australia and the world.

It’s beautiful red river gums, large steep earthy banks, amazing fish, beautiful birds and abundant wildlife, can never be forgotten, once encounted.

For many the Darling river is their Darling, and they can never truly rest until they are back under it’s beauty and/or presence!

The Darling river can nourish and refresh your being, and give you many answers to life. Just sit or lay quietly on it’s bank, and problems or life’s difficulties that you thought you have, can become easily fixed and/or insignificant, in the scale of the bigger picture!

Natures treasure chest

European explorers were very impressed by the richness and diversity of native fauna in the Bourke region.

Beautiful birds, animals, fish, colourful soils, rich diversity of flora, big open crystal night skies, wild untamed wilderness to explore, are but a few treasures that the Bourke region has to offer ….. to be continued