Nothing but the Pub

  Mulga Creek Hotel Byrock NSW To purchase my latest book on the Pubs of the Murray and Edward Rivers click on: nothingbutthepub.com                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 i...

When I get to The Homebush Hotel at Penarie, there’s no bugger about except a suss looking bloke having a durrie on the front porch. This, folks, is Nugget, boss of the joint and he watches me get off Super Ten then disappears inside. By the time I’m at doorway he’s sorted a glass of water and is asking me what I’d like to chase it with. I grab a Furphy, confident it’ll not be my last for the night. Nuggett’s into his second year here after turning his back on the ‘smoke’ “ I was managing pubs and clubs in Cairns and when I finished with the them I decided to get a real job and headed to Brisbane and stayed with Telstra for 18 years and paid off a house in Hamilton and then bought the blue van. Then I headed down to Wodonga to spend some time with mum and dad who live down there. Then I got a call from an old mate who had a pub he needed someone to look after at Corowa so I’d drive from Wodonga to Corowa each day and I did that for about 8 months and then ...