Pub With No Beer or CustomersThe drover at the Drover's Camp at Newcastle Waters, NT.

Sunday, July 6:

As everyone had said it was difficult to get into the park at the Daly Waters Pub we decided to go and stay nearby and then would be early enough to get in there. We chose to stay at Dunmarra.

On the way we stopped at the Todd Memorial and Newcastle Waters.

The Todd Memorial marked the efforts of Sir Charles Todd who was in charge of the Overland Telegraph project and the memorial is a mile from where the northern section joined the southern section to complete the line.

Newcastle Waters occupied a couple of hours of our time. It was established as it was the point at which the stock routes from the north, west, south and east meet. With a permanent water supply the stockmen would gather, go the pub, get supplied before moving on. In the wet season they stayed in the stockman’s camp and literally drank way their wages.

Today, the town at the entrance to the Newcastle Waters station has an operating school, a couple of occupied houses and the rest are relics and a great reminder of life up until the 1960s. Fed funding has seen the development of information panels which give the whole history of the people of the town and even lists all the drovers who worked along the various stock routes. What characters they must have been.

 

The drover statue at the Drover's Camp at Newcastle Waters.

Wal behind the bar of the Junction Hotel, Newcastle Waters..... but there is no beer or customers.

Wal is ready to fill up any passing cars at Newcastle Waters - not sure if there is any fuel in that there pump.

 

We pulled into the roadhouse park next to Graeme and Wendy who we were next to at Banka Banka. He was a fellow Vietnam Vet but served in the Navy. We also met another fellow on his own in a huge Winnebago his daughter-in-law had bought him after her father left her $8m. Sadly, his partner had left for home in Darwin so he was travelling alone to visit friends in Adelaide. We ended up having dinner with him in the roadhouse where I had a magnificent piece of Barra and chips while Wal had the roast - $17 each.