The industrious folk of Corner Country in New South Wales have been busy during the pandemic, buoyed by a $5.8 million infrastructure grant.

The result is an engaging outback touring experience across 38,000sq.km of north-west NSW, called Sturt’s Steps.

It’s an astonishing achievement for the 300-odd people of this unincorporated region (there’s no local government – all facilities are managed by the community).

Journey of exploration

Sturt’s Steps roughly follows the route of explorer Charles Sturt in the 1840s as he searched futilely for an inland sea.

Like Sturt, you can explore the landscape, geology, flora and fauna, and learn about Indigenous culture.

Unlike Sturt, you don’t need a convoy of 16 people, 11 horses, 30 bullocks, 200 sheep, six dogs, numerous carts and a whaleboat.

The replica of Sturt's whaleboat.

Nor do you need to navigate the unknown. The 1100km circular route of sealed and unsealed roads, starting at either Broken Hill in NSW or Cameron Corner in south-west Queensland, is fully sign-posted and interpretive boards highlight points of interest.

This is big-sky country where roads disappear into infinity beneath a vast cloud-tufted cerulean canvas.

A landscape of stony gibber plains and jump-ups, sandhills and salt lakes, claypans and ephemeral lakes.

Herds of brindled goats and bustlebottomed emus fossick amongst saltbush stubble, chatters of lemon-lime budgerigars twist and turn in aerial acrobatics and spiralling willie-willies siphon red dust as they swirl across the plains.

Outback hospitality

While shrinking waterholes curtailed Sturt’s exploration, there are several spots to wet your whistle.

Packsaddle Roadhouse, conveniently located halfway between Broken Hill and Tibooburra on the sealed Silver City Highway, offers a welcome as warm as the weather from publicans Mia and Arnie Degoumois.

It’s a perfect stopover with fuel, accommodation, a children’s playground and a dining room resplendent with outback memorabilia, from saddles and stirrups to boots and billycans.

Tibooburra, the ‘capital of Corner Country’, population of about 120, boasts two pubs from the 1880s.

The Tibooburra Hotel, aka ‘The Two Storey’, is being renovated by licensee Tracey Hotchin following a fire in 2021.

The dining room at the Packsaddle Roadhouse.

At the Family Hotel, publican Melissa Thompson works the bar surrounded by 1960s murals painted by the likes of Clifton Pugh and Russell Drysdale.

Tibooburra means ‘place of rocks’ in the local language and the town is corralled by enormous granite boulders.
It makes a good base for easy daytripping to Milparinka, Cameron Corner and Sturt National Park.

Cameron Corner, the intersection of NSW, South Australia and Queensland, demarcated by dog fences, feels like the middle of nowhere.

Place your hand atop the survey marker and you’re in three states at once. You can even play a round of golf with holes in each state.

Despite its name, Cameron Corner Store is an atmospheric outback pub, with hats adorning the walls and RFDS donation messages dangling overhead.

Milparinka, the first town declared on the Albert Goldfields in the 1880s, has been restored from a derelict ghost town to an engaging Heritage Precinct on the edge of Evelyn Creek.

Publican of the Albert Hotel, Bec Young and her family are the only permanent residents, though itinerant volunteers operate the visitor centre, camping facilities and upcoming astronomy park.

Art trail and museums

An eclectic art trail features larger-thanlife wire sculptures, steel silhouettes, tool trees, murals and an upturned replica of Sturt’s boat.

In Sturt National Park, the largest arid park in NSW, an enormous bandicoot, bilby and western quoll, woven from wire offcuts, highlight locally extinct mammals being reintroduced into wild deserts, a scientific project to restore ecosystems.

A life-size cameleer and camel, also made of wire, salute Tibooburra’s new museum chronicling the role of outback cameleers and the surveying of Cameron Corner.

The NPWS Visitor Centre is a mustsee too, with displays of Indigenous artefacts, geological history, taxidermy animals and jars of preserved spiders and snakes to thrill the kids.

At Milparinka, art interprets history with a mural depicting the ages and stages of the region, an outdoor steel desk inscribed with historical correspondence and a Corten steel cut-out representing five generations of Aboriginal women.

The restored stone courthouse and police barracks have rooms devoted to women’s stories and Indigenous heritage, Farm Sheds house pastoral paraphernalia and the new Albert Goldfields Mining Heritage Centre succinctly showcases the stories of gold mining, Sturt’s expedition and renowned pastoralist Sir Sidney Kidman.

A contemporary portrait of Sturt and a model of his entourage enlightens a visit to nearby Depot Glen where Sturt’s party camped for six months and his second-in-command James Poole is buried.

Climbing to Sturt’s Cairn atop Mt Poole reveals the harsh beauty of the terrain, now home to hardworking characters with hearts as expansive as the landscape.

Story Briar Jensen