Striking It Rich
Sydney Morning Herald
Saturday November 4, 2000
Richard Woolveridge catches up with the past in former gold country.
The years seem to click away with the kilometres as you head past Orange "out back" into frontier country on the old road to Wellington, where gums litter the landscape like old bones and history lies a scratch beneath the surface.
It seems a long way from anywhere. But anyone will go a long way if it's worth it - and in the middle of the last century two types of gold made it very worth it. One ate grass and had a fleece worth a fortune on the other side of the world; the other had to be mined but was worth a fortune anywhere.
The NSW gold rush made these tiny towns grow like desert flowers, and just as quickly fade and die. Yet the frontier feel hangs in the air as you pass through one-street places such as Stuart Town ("home of The Man from Ironbark") and Mumbil, across rail tracks and onto the dirt track that leads to Bakers Swamp.
This was once the main coaching road to the goldfields - the bumpy highway where you dodged bushrangers such as Ben Hall (whose dad had been transported for seven years for stealing a handkerchief) instead of the road-senseless sheep of 2000.
Off this beaten track, amid the endless eucalypts, a magnificent avenue of mature pines and elms stands out like a gold tooth in an accountant's mouth.
They were planted about 150 years ago to be the shadowy sentries to Narroogal Park homestead, which began its life modestly as a single small building by the River Bell in 1832 but has been gradually extended - thanks in part to a convict press-gang - until it became a compound of some luxury and substance in its glory days.
It's the eccentric stand-out-like-a-sore-thumb luxury evidenced by the lush, English-style garden - so fragile and thirsty in a desert climate where the temperature soars with the sun in the day and dives with it at night - and the heavy pianola in the Victorian drawing room.
But both must have been marvels in their day and are still charming now.
The buildings of the guest suites are clustered around the gardens, the pool and the tennis court like three elegant and comfortably aging spinsters happy to sit back and watch the young at play.
The place may, like the rather overgrown tennis court and the 1940s bathrooms, have seen fitter days, but when you are staying in someone's home the warmth of the hospitality overshadows such considerations.
It is very comfortable and enormously relaxing. There are four suites, all with their own bathrooms. The suites lead out onto a wide covered veranda that overlooks the gardens and the hills beyond. There you can slump back in an easy chair, grab one of the many books on local history and characters and lose yourself in the magic of the place, its wide skies and its humming bush percussion - free of all traffic noise.
There is such a sense of trust about this place it quite takes a city slicker's breath away. You are not asked for addresses, car registrations, credit cards or the like. You are taken on trust.
With two teenaged children and a dog, we were the only ones staying that night because the owner, Noeline Maclean, was away. We had the run of the place, with just the resident peacock to watch over us, after our host, Pam, served us up a very adequate and filling meal in a strangely quaint
dining room that looked more Victorian Knightsbridge than Narroogal. Returning to her home in Mumbil, she left us to light the log fire and enjoy a night of carousel (yes, carousel).
It was clearly a step or two down from that enjoyed by one Colonel Mundy, who stayed a night at Narroogal in 1846 and wrote in his diary: "We dined sumptously - claret, hock, champagne and, of course, bottled ale, as perhaps as though our carousel had taken place on the banks of the Blue Rhine rather than on those of an Australian bush river."
I know what he means. Narroogal- which is from the Aboriginal word narragal, meaning place where honey is found - is also a place where two worlds collide and get blended after a fashion.
If you need activities beyond the pool, the tennis court, or the walking and reading, it's an hour to get to the Western Plains Zoo at Dubbo, or the dish at Parkes, a balloon flight at Canowindra, the caves and Angora rabbit farm at Wellington or the Burrendong Dam.
But I suggest you just take some carousel gear and some friends and leave the car alone.
VISITORS' BOOK
THE PLACE NARROOGAL PARK GUEST HOMESTEAD, Narroogal Road via Wellington.
BOOKINGS
Phone/fax 6846 7223/4.
PRICES
Single $65 a night, lunch $12, dinner $25; double $120; student $25-$30, lunch $8, dinner $15; child (5-12) $20-$25, lunch $5, dinner $10; infant free, lunch $3, dinner $7. BYO.
HOW TO GET THERE
Turn right after Orange on old road to Wellington, left at Stuart Town, left at Mumbil for Bakers Swamp. Signpost for Narroogal Park. Less than an hour from Orange, 41/2 hours from Sydney.
ROOMS AVAILABLE NEXT WEEKEND
Nothing until November 26 (renovations).
CHILDREN
Yes - and dogs.
WHEELCHAIR ACCESS
Ground-floor accommodation but no special access.
SMOKING Outside.
PLUSES
Very relaxing in a time-warp way.
MINUSES
Fussily sauced food could be simplified.
RATING 16/20
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© 2000 Sydney Morning Herald
