Hungerford
Tiny border town made famous by Henry Lawson's short
story.
'One of the hungriest cleared roads in New South Wales runs
to within a couple of miles of Hungerford, and stops there;
then you strike through the scrub to the town. There is no
distant prospect of Hungerford - you don't see the town till
you are quite close to it, and then two or three
white-washed galvanised-iron roofs start out of the mulga.
'They say that a past Ministry commenced to clear the
road from Bourke, under the impression that Hungerford was
an important place, and went on, with the blindness peculiar
to governments, till they got to within two miles of the
town. Then they ran short of rum and rations, and sent a man
on to get them, and make inquiries. The member never came
back, and two more were sent to find him - or Hungerford.
Three days later the two returned in an exhausted condition,
and submitted a motion of want-of-confidence, which was
lost. Then the whole House went on and was lost also.
Strange to relate, that Government was never missed.
'However, 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...
'Hungerford consists of two houses and a humpy in New
South Wales, and five houses in Queensland.
Characteristically enough, both the pubs are in Queensland.
We got a glass of sour yeast at one and paid sixpence for it
- we had asked for English ale.
'The post office is in New South Wales, and the
police-barracks in Bananaland. The police cannot do anything
if there's a row going on across the street in New South
Wales, except to send to Brisbane and have an extradition
warrant applied for; and they don't do much if there's a row
in Queensland. Most of the rows are across the border, where
the pubs are.'
This extract from Henry Lawson's famous sketch
'Hungerford' which appeared in While the Billy Boils
(published in 1896) was written after Lawson had visited the
town in the summer of 1892-1893. Today the sketch is
probably this tiny town's one claim to fame. Located nearly
1000 km from Sydney and northwest of Bourke, Hungerford
today is a tiny settlement which is well off the usual
tourist tracks because of the mediocre roads from
Eulo in Queensland and
Bourke in New South Wales. It is a comment on the
changing nature of the outback that the two hotels in the
town in Lawson's day has now been reduced to only one. It is
still in Queensland. That much will never change.
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Hungerford
