A well-preserved Aboriginal cemetery, just out of the town, is unique. An arranged tour, with a local guide who knows its history, is a rare and delightful experience. In addition sacred Aboriginal sites such as the carved trees at Collymongle Station is a unique experience.

Another popular activity are the several gravel pits around the town which provide fossicking for quartz, topaz, agate, petrified wood and other materials. An organised tour to local cotton farms, and associated gin can often be arranged. This small, quiet, country town also boasts a swimming pool that is open from October to March;  and many other sporting activities.

History of Collarenebri

The town came into being after a pub was opened on the upper Barwon River during the late 1850's, and developed with the rising need for supplies and services.Notorious bushranger Captain Thunderbolt is said to have roamed the area in 1866, holding people at gunpoint and relieving them of their hard-earned cash. One story tells how Thunderbolt held up the local storekeeper, stealing 22 pounds, then proceeded to rob three businesses, including the Squatters Arms Hotel on the same day.

The first school teacher in Collarenebri was appointed in 1885. She was just 17 years old when she took her posting: unusual even in those days.

Have a walk around the streets and soak up the history of the many of the buildings date back to 1910.

Collarenebri was among the last places in Australia to be converted from a manual switchboard to an automatic telephone exchange.

If you are looking for a relaxing few days away from the big city, why not try Collarenebri.

The Jolly  Mungindi

On the Border...On the Barwon

Mungindi (pronounced 'mung-in-die') is truly a border town. Half of it is in NSW and half in Queensland. As NSW utilises daylight savings and Queensland does not, this creates the unusual situation where the one town is located within different time zones in the summer.

Mungindi is a small rural town of some 650 people, located 748 km north-west of Sydney and 120 km north-west of Moree on the road to St George in Queensland. It is essentially a service centre to a rich agricultural district which principally produces cotton, wheat and beef cattle. The Barwon River flows through the middle of the town, making it a popular district for anglers.

The town's name derives from the language of the Kamilaroi people who inhabited the area before white settlement. It is thought to mean 'water hole by the river'.

Escaped convict George Clarke traversed the district with the Kamilaroi people in the years 1826-1831. Upon his recapture he told of a vast inland river called the Kindur which prompted the acting governor to send Sir Thomas Mitchell to investigate the claims. Mitchell encountered the Barwon River in 1832, a little south of present-day Mungindi. It was Mitchell's favourable report on the pastoral prospects of the area which prompted squatters to fan out in the 1830s (1) heading north from the Hunter Valley along the Namoi then west along the Gwydir River to the Barwon and (2) north from Bathurst and Mudgee along the Macquarie and Castlereagh Rivers, with the first settlement on the Barwon occurring between 1839 and 1842.

The town was laid out in 1880 by surveyor Robert Matthews who did some interesting early ethnographic research relating to the indigenous people of Australia.

There is an annual show held at the end of May and a race meeting on the first Saturday in July. The Two Mile Pub is an old inn of local fame which is indeed two miles out of town, on the Queensland side of the border.

Mungindians have been explaining for at least one hundred years:

"We are on the NSW/Queensland border where the wiggly bit goes straight. It is where the Barwon River stops being the border and the 29th Parallel takes over. We still have the One Ton Post that the surveyor Cameron (of Cameron's Corner fame) put here. Because the town of Mungindi is on both sides of the border we are the only town in Australia cut by a time zone in summer but that's another story! Mungindi is part of the richest agricultural shire in Australia producing wheat, cotton, cattle and sheep. There are two working cotton gins close to Mungindi township."

Seven Good Reasons To Visit Mungindi ...

1. Mungindi has never had a traffic jam.
2. There are no traffic lights.
3. Canberra are not trying to force high rise developments on us.
4. There are no terrorist alerts out for the MMF.
5. The sky is wide and blue and the sunsets are divine.
6. The yabbies are easy to catch.
7. The fish are jumping out of the Barwon so you need to stand behind a tree to put your bait on a line.