Poets Route

This area of the Bourke Shire is famous for its association with great Australian poets like Henry Lawson, Scottish born Will Ogilvie, and the ill-fated Harry ‘Breaker’ Morant.

What’s been dubbed ‘The Dowling Track’, began as a chain of artesian springs strung between the Darling, Warrego and Paroo Rivers. Indigenous people believed they were the creation of powerful spirits – gifts for survival. European settlers repurposed them as staging posts for transport and stock and built hotels to provide shelter, food and drink for travellers.  

The Poets Route follows the Warrego and Cuttaburra Rivers, along with the various tributaries which go to make up the vast depression ephemeral wetlands of the Cuttaburra Basin. The first leg follows the footsteps of Henry Lawson, who famously walked to Hungerford in the summer of 1892-93 and which has been termed ‘one of the most important treks in Australian Literary History’. The road is mostly straight and largely gravel, although it is becoming increasingly more sealed all the time.

After Hungerford you’ll travel east back towards Enngonia. This road takes you past two newly purchased National Parks; Brindingabba and Commeroo, where camping and some accommodation is available. The roads are unsealed all the way.

For the adventurous, a half hour north of Enngonia is the remains of the Barringun Hotel where, until its destruction by fire in 2016, it was a popular watering hole. Alternatively, follow the fully sealed Mitchell Highway straight back to Bourke.