Walkabout Creek Hotel, McKinlay, Qld

 

Mulga Creek Hotel

Byrock

NSW

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            So anyway there’s no mine, no diggings, without their mullock piles and noodling for good pubs is no different – clichéd themed oh-so-cute and quaint joints with transient staff and oblivious management with zero-care factors about the organic entity of which they are briefly a part, are the inevitable slag piles of fossicking for the gems of the outback hotel landscape. 

         But for every slag pile, every mullock heap, unless it’s a blue duck, there’re gems – precious places like, well ….. like the Mulga Creek Hotel at Byrock. I’ve dropped in here three times and every time it’s been wet. Today’s no exception and there’re puddles out the front in the empty parking area.

         Henry Lawson graced Byrock in 1892, on his way to Bourke, sent there by JF Archibald to ‘dry out’ from his chronic alcoholism and his only slightly less chronic depression, and provided with a one-way train ticket and ten quid in the pocket of his threadbare daks. There’s a word for that, but we’ll get to it in a bit.

 “About Byrock we met the bush liar in all his glory. He was dressed like – like a bush larrikin …… He’d been everywhere including the Gulf …. He had learned butchering in a day (and) was a bit of a scrapper … He worked with a man who shore four hundred sheep in nine hours.” 

     Lawson didn't so much mind liars. He later wrote an exquisite few pars on them when telling a yarn about Hungerford but on this occasion another old mate in the party finally had enough:

 “ … a quiet-looking bushman in the corner … grew restless …. and took the liar down in about three minutes.” 

     Two years later Byrock must’ve been at its apogee. Another Sydney to Bourke train traveller wrote a column syndicated by most major papers of the time: 

 “(Byrock)… is a small place, but seems to have more than its usual share of hotels, 

as I counted no less than five."

  Five pubs! Here! Today’s there’s just the one. And not much else.

       The pub’s the general store and it’s also post office – a speck in the middle of the red soil. As I park Super Ten in front of the lone parking meter (all proceeds to the RFDS) there’s an old mate leaning on the rail looking out at the world with slitted eyes from under a blue cap cradling a schoonie with the froth freshly blown off in one hand. Paul’s mo, trimmed in the middle so it won’t singe up from the endless brown paper durries he smokes, drips down around the ends of his mouth giving him a pensive, old world air. 

 He runs the place with his wife, Gail – has been for ten years at Christmas – after first buying the place in August 1980. But it burnt down that November (‘was a genuine accident. We were shattered, heartbroken’) before they could take possession and the owner took four years to rebuild it. Paul was in the bar the day it re-opened in 1984 and waited for a quarter of a century before the pub, to which he felt so connected, became available again. 

     We head inside where Rebecca, one of those rare travellers who’re well suited to hospitality explains the Covid regs and as she’s grabbing me a beer, the place gets busy with the arrival of Greg in his flanno over a hi-viz work shirt. Greg Smith’s one of those blokes you hope to run into in places like this. He was born into pubs, has lived in them, his family’s been involved in them and he’s spent more than his share of his time and funds on the fun side of the bar. 

         His great-grandmother owned the stunning Railway at Ravenswood in the mid-1800’s followed by a stint in one at Charters Towers and then another up in Cooktown. “There’s some sort of memorial to her in the town. She took up the Cooktown Pub just before they found gold in the Palmer River. It was rich pickings and the only fella who didn't find gold was the bloke who didn't get out of bed in the morning.” Greg’s great grandmother had a very good heart. “Most of the hopefuls who arrived by boat from down south wouldn't have a razzoo so she’d grubstake pretty much every penniless dreamer who came by.” Yep, I didn't know what that meant either. Look it up. It’s a bloody great word, eh! And it’s pretty much what Archibald did for Henry Lawson back in 1892. 

         We talk about pubs past and present and about the number that - how do I say this ? – are lost to fire. From Gravesend to Forbes to Barringun to Carrathool. He tells me a yarn about a pub not too far from here: “…. So after the fire the assessor came around and told the owner that the moment a terminal fire starts, ownership switches from the client to the insurance company and after looking at the still smoking ruins he had one major question to ask the publican: Just why was the main bar full of mattresses from the rooms upstairs?” 

         We rock back and have a swig at our respective well-spaced tables. “Ah yes, “ he smiles, “this is the country of the big match.” High on a side wall of the pub, above some photos of locals behaving poorly, getting bogged and one of a steam engine in the station where old Henry stretched his legs, there’s a T-shirt displaying its back. “BYROCK Home of the NGEMBA PEOPLE” They’re part of the Kurulkiyalu or “stone country mob”. 

         Paul’s back inside for a bum warm in front of the log fire and it’s important for him to show me the important parts of town. “Finish your drink and I’ll take you down to the waterhole and rock-pools. The road’s deep wet clay in bits, so the ute’s the go. Help you understand this place a bit. The original pub ruins are down there too.” 

         A quick skull (actually it’s skol) and soon we’re sliding down the wet bits and teeth rattling over the drier stretches for a few kms until a dip signifies the Mulga Creek which we cross and then park up. Not much left of the old pub, but its walls and outline can be made out and then it’s down to the creek which has a bit of water and then back to a parking area just off the road at the entrance to the Wuggarbuggarnea. That’s Byrock Rockholes to you. 

        

 

        Paul points off to the south-west where, some 30kms or so is Coronga Peak, a long-dead volcano that millions of years back spewed its igneous phlegm over the country here, dotting the red earth with granite blotches. This stuff’s impervious to weather and allows no seepage. Any rain or morning moisture remains long after the creek beds have run dry. The main rockpool here, fed by a long deep flue only rarely runs dry and for thousands of years has been a place of survival and a centre of indigenous beliefs. “Baiame” – the great creator in Ngemba stories – had his home here and he dug the waterhole - known as ‘Bai’ which means semen - with his stone axe and the long flue which feeds the main pool was where he dragged huge firewood and larger animals for food. 

         Several times a week cars will turn off the highway at the pub and head down here, bringing Ngemba people - from Bourke mainly – to spend time at this site and to reconnect with their stories and their land. 

There’s a road-train out front of the pub when we get back and Paul slides in behind the bar to help Rebecca. There ain’t too many locals in Byrock on a Tuesday night so after a simple but good dinner washed down with 6 bucks schooners, I head out the back to my digs in ‘the barracks’ where 50 bucks gets me an air-conned room, good comfortable bed and a jug and makings for a brew in the morning. I take a look at the wide country out the back. 

Not a mullock pile in sight.