Hungerford
Tiny border town made famous by Henry Lawson's short story.
'One of the hungriest cleared roads in New South Wales runs to within a couple of miles of Hungerford, and stops there; then you strike through the scrub to the town. There is no distant prospect of Hungerford - you don't see the town till you are quite close to it, and then two or three white-washed galvanised-iron roofs start out of the mulga.

'They say that a past Ministry commenced to clear the road from Bourke, under the impression that Hungerford was an important place, and went on, with the blindness peculiar to governments, till they got to within two miles of the town. Then they ran short of rum and rations, and sent a man on to get them, and make inquiries. The member never came back, and two more were sent to find him - or Hungerford. Three days later the two returned in an exhausted condition, and submitted a motion of want-of-confidence, which was lost. Then the whole House went on and was lost also. Strange to relate, that Government was never missed.

'However, we found Hungerford and camped there for a day. The town is right on the Queensland border, and an interprovincial rabbit-proof fence - with rabbits on both sides of it - runs across the main street...

'Hungerford consists of two houses and a humpy in New South Wales, and five houses in Queensland. Characteristically enough, both the pubs are in Queensland. We got a glass of sour yeast at one and paid sixpence for it - we had asked for English ale.

'The post office is in New South Wales, and the police-barracks in Bananaland. The police cannot do anything if there's a row going on across the street in New South Wales, except to send to Brisbane and have an extradition warrant applied for; and they don't do much if there's a row in Queensland. Most of the rows are across the border, where the pubs are.'

This extract from Henry Lawson's famous sketch 'Hungerford' which appeared in While the Billy Boils (published in 1896) was written after Lawson had visited the town in the summer of 1892-1893. Today the sketch is probably this tiny town's one claim to fame. Located nearly 1000 km from Sydney and northwest of Bourke, Hungerford today is a tiny settlement which is well off the usual tourist tracks because of the mediocre roads from Eulo in Queensland and Bourke in New South Wales. It is a comment on the changing nature of the outback that the two hotels in the town in Lawson's day has now been reduced to only one. It is still in Queensland. That much will never change.

	Hotels
	The Royal Mail Hotel Achernar St Hungerford NSW 4493 Telephone: (07) 4655 4093
	Restaurants
	The Royal Mail Hotel Achernar St Hungerford NSW 4493 Telephone: (07) 4655 4093