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| The Mulga Creek Hotel at
Byrock |
Byrock
Sleepy little township with a pleasant pub
No one really knows how Byrock got its name and the theories
which abound are almost certainly more interesting than the
real origins. One school of thought argues that one of the
early local residents, a family which had a holding of 1600
acres, was named Bye. Thus when referring to the nearby rock
hole people spoke of Bye's Rockhole. From there it was only
a small step to Bye's Rock which subsequently became known
as Bye Rock.
Another school of thought claims that the local
Aborigines, the Nyamimba people, referred to the rock hole
simply as 'bai'. This then became the Bye Rock hole
One thing is certain. When the railway arrived in the
tiny settlement, the station was called 'Bye Rock'. The most
popular explanation for how it became 'Byrock' is that, when
the post office arrived, they requested a rubber stamp from
Sydney and it came back with the incorrect spelling
'Byrock'. The Railway Station Master, eager for a simple
solution, cut out the 'e' and the space from his sign and
made it 'Byrock' as well.
For some years the railway station was the temporary end
of the single line from Sydney. It was 747.39 km from
Sydney, 152 metres above sea-level, and it was opened on 2
September 1884 - the same day that the railway station was
opened at Coolabah, further down the track.
The railway, slowly pushing north to Bourke, was an
attempt by the NSW government to gain economic control over
these northern outposts (most trade at the time was going
down the Darling River to South Australia) and to serve the
ever-increasing population on the large grazing properties
in the area.
The NSW government was determined to make Byrock a viable
centre. In August, only a month before the arrival of the
railway, the government offered blocks of land for sale in
the town. Although this would seem like an imaginative
initiative, the land around Byrock had already been occupied
for some decades and the Cobb & Co coach had been coming
through and stopping at the Mulga Creek Hotel (located about
3 km to the west of the town) for some years. With the
arrival of the train, Cobb & Co started offering a service
to Bourke four times weekly. The trip lasted a very bumpy 12
hours.
In fairness, the government did attract people to the
town. By 1885 (only a year after the railway arrived) there
were about 500 people living in the area. There were 10
stores, 5 hotels, as well as a butcher's shop and a baker's
shop.
The railhead was designed to attract wool shipments from
the north. This seemed to work. The first rail shipment from
the town was a load of wool which had come from Paroo on the
Queensland border.
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| The Aboriginal water hole
at Byrock |
In spite of this success the town was doomed because it
did not have regular and reliable water. The rock hole,
which is no more than about 400 metres west of the Mitchell
Highway, on the road north of the Mulga Creek Hotel,
provided beautiful water but it did dry up in times of
drought. Water had to be brought from Narromine and it was
sold to locals at one penny a gallon.
Things to see:
The Attractions
Today the town has little more than a hotel, a general
store, a deserted railway station, an old butcher's shop, an
historic cemetery and a few unoccupied homes. The hotel is a
popular watering hole which also offers camping facilities
and bushwalks through the scrub.
Byrock Water Hole
The town's old water hole (the raison d'etre of the town in
the early days) was also a popular Aboriginal meeting place.
It is said that Biamee, the creator god, drank from its
water during the Dreamtime. Afghan camel drivers, railway
fettlers and Cobb & Co coaches have also enjoyed its
resources over the years.
Cobb & Co Heritage Trail
The historic inland coaching company, Cobb & Co, celebrates
the 150th anniversary of its first journey in 2004 (and the
80th anniversary of its last, owing to the emergence of
motorised transport). The trailblazing company's
contribution to Australia's development is celebrated with
the establishment of a heritage trail which explores the
terrain covered on one of its old routes: between Bathurst
and Bourke.
Cobb & Co's origins lay in the growing human traffic
prompted by the goldrushes of the early 1850s. As the
Heritage Trail website states: 'The company was enormously
successful and had branches or franchises throughout much of
Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and Japan. At its peak,
Cobb & Co operated along a network of tracks that extended
further than those of any other coach system in the world
its coaches travelled 28,000 miles (44,800km) per week and
6000 (out of their 30,000) horses were harnessed every day.
Cobb & Co created a web of tracks from Normanton on the Gulf
of Carpentaria and Port Douglas on the Coral Sea down to the
furthest reaches of Victoria and South Australia in all, a
continuous line of 2000 miles (3200km) of track over eastern
Australia from south to north, with a total of 7000 miles
(11,200km) of regular routes' (see www.cobbandco.net.au).
The Byrock Hole, from whence the town sprang, was once
frequented by Cobb & Co coaches and the old Mulga Creek
Hotel was used as a Cobb & Co change station from 1879.
Unfortunately, it no longer exists in its original form or
location, although the site's whereabouts is known.
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Byrock
