Never Overlook a Bush Pub – Part Two

About 60km from Lightning Ridge is The Grawin, an opal field that is less touristed and more the way things must have been in Lightning Ridge years ago. The Golf Course is as rough and tumble as it gets, but the last hole is also next to the Club in the Scrub where a friendly band of characters drink and reminisce.

 Posters at the entrance reveal health advice on schizophrenia; Melbourne Cup sweepstake rules; and draconian penalties for not abiding by Club rules. We talk to a man strumming a guitar and sipping his beer. The guitarist says out here no need for a watch, everyone looks out for each other, even share their last tin of baked beans. Then he breaks a guitar string and says he has a Swiss girlfriend who loves travelling.

At the next table, an old miner sits motionless, with liquid blue eyes, clean shirt in matching colour, and a long biblical beard.

Next to him is a lean character with an overlarge shirt - what does the bulge conceal underneath above his hip? The guitarist mutters under his breath that this is the local snake catcher, reptile and animal expert, Feral Erroll. He too, is keen to have a chat and enquires if we are able to give him a lift further down the Grawin. More subdued muttering from the guitarist that Erroll has been banned from driving, possibly for good, but I don't catch the full reason. Seems best not to even think of asking.

We are so taken with the Club that we park up in the scrubland behind it and spend a couple of days relaxing. Next we head further into the Grawin, to the Glengarry Hilton, another pub to slake the thirst of miners. The dunnies have striking puppets on the doors.

Last stop for us is the Sheepyard Pub, quite busy at 10.30am on a Friday. At the back is a train that once sported tiger stripes and did service at Taronga Zoo in Sydney. The phone tree has an array of technology in distress.

For a trip back in music history, we drive to Carinda where the local pub is famed as the set for the 'Lets Dance' video by David Bowie. The publican takes a pic of us up against the tiled wall inside, the same tiles used in the video - then prints out a copy for us to sign and stick on the wall.

From Carinda to Brewarrina we drive for hours on dirt roads lined with water from the recent rains, although the drought-hit pastures are bone dry and whipped by raging dust storms and willie willies.

A magnificent, wedge-tailed eagle stops us in the middle of the road with an imperious glare as he straddles and rips into roo roadkill. Flocks of nervous sheep leap across the road or stop and stare wishing for a handout. The recent rain is not to be sniffed at, it just isn't enough, and needs more if the first shoots of green pick are to survive.