BY Robert Aspinall
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| Royal Mail Hotel |
On the state border with NSW, is the small town of Hungerford, population 14.
I was brought up to believe that Cunnamulla was the end of the earth. Hungerford
is 185km beyond Cunnamulla, which itself is 820km west of Brisbane via St
George, making Hungerford over one thousand kilometres west of Brisbane,
a long way to go for a drink!
I stayed at the Royal Mail Hotel for a week. There wasn't much to do except drink, but there is nothing wrong with that. The owners of the isolated pub are Peter and Rhelma Young. Peter and Rhelma have owned the pub for about 7 years now. The pub sells almost everything, it is the local fuel depot, Post Office and general store, and the police station is almost next door.
Three hundred metres or so to the south along the main street, Achner Street, is the NSW border and the "road" to Bourke, 217km away, allow a day for this journey. There is a large gate at the border, with numerous signs warning what will happen to you if you do not shut the gate behind you. The gate is one of a few openings in the "Rabbit Proof Fence", although I swear I saw rabbits both sides of the fence looking at one another!
From the Queensland side, the drive from Cunnamulla is a little easier - little I said. There is bitumen for the 64km trip to Eulo, population 60. The Eulo Queen Hotel is the main building here, it owes its name to Isobel Robinson, who ran the hotel and virtually reigned over the local opal fields around a hundred years ago. She was known as the Queen of Eulo, hence the name of the hotel. From Eulo the road to Hungerford branches away from the bitumen to the left or the south. The road when I travelled on it was a very dusty rocky road full of corrugations for its 122km length to Hungerford. It is well worth the trip. When I arrived at the Royal Mail Hotel, the publican, Peter Young was waiting at the door of the pub with an icy cold stubbie in his hand for me!
All drinks here are packaged, the main reason being that if anything was to go wrong with the taps or equipment, you could always cool the beer on ice as the nearest serviceman was 100's of km away. The pub was very well stocked with a fine assortment of ales for the thirsty and those with parched lips. Peter carts the supplies and mail from Cunnamulla on the twice a week mail run of about 800km. I was shown to my room, one of three along the front verandah of the pub. The rooms themselves are still of the original construction from 1870, the year the pub was built, with gaps between the roughly hewn, 4 x 4 floor timbers. The gaps are there to let the water out during floods! The rooms are quite reasonable considering the remoteness of Hungerford.
The land around Hungerford is very dry and has been for a few years now. The town is situated on the Paroo River, which hasn't flowed for years. The Royal Flying Doctor visits Hungerford fortnightly, and the "locals" come for a drink from a 100km radius. The Bilby farm is not far away, and is worth a visit. Spend a day with Peter on his mail run. Or spend the day in the pub with Rhelma who runs the hotel, cooks the meals and anything else while Peter is away.
Henry Lawson wrote of Hungerford and about his visit in 1893, he had walked
there with a mate from the NSW gold fields around Bathurst. "We found
Hungerford and camped there for a day. The town is right on the Queensland
border, and an interprovincial rabbit proof fence . . . with rabbits on both
sides of it . . . runs across the main street".
Lawson went on:
" Hungerford consists of two houses and a humpy in NSW and and five houses in Queensland. Characteristically enough, both pubs are in Queensland. We got a glass of sour yeast at one and paid sixpence for it . . . we had asked for English Ale".
And about a Queensland Trooper:
" . . . then he left us, and later on we saw him sitting with the rest of the population on a bench under the hotel verandah. Next morning, we rolled up our swags and left Hungerford to the North West".
(Thargomindah - also a terrible road, 145km of it).
A great pub with lots of character, friendliness and charm. Worth a stay for 2 or 3 days, or even more if you want to escape into the outback, and meet some wonderful people and characters, and have a yarn or two, (and a beer or 27).
Robert Aspinall,
Innisfail, Qld.
21 / 05 / 2005
Take a break from drinking like the author of this article did - Read why and how in his book Between Drinks: Escape the Routine, Take Control and Join the Clear Thinkers