Yackety Yack, Day 13 – Post Office Hotel, Mallaley

Day 13 Sunday 21/5/2023 Coolah to Mullaley, 4 – 16 sunny

It wasn’t cold last night and rather pleasant. That proves our theory of being warmer in Coolah.

We hit the road again and a roadside sign says “Road Surface Deformed”. Well, that’s a new one.

We’re on the Black Stump Way and as we pass the black stump we know that we can say that we are now beyond the black stump. But, in the bush, black stumps seem to be about as plentiful as butchers claiming to have award-winning sausages. We pass through tiny Tambar Springs. This town has the honour of sending the most men, per capita, to World War One. 94 lads from Tambar Springs went off to that war.

VeeWee has been complaining about not having time to do some washing and that she’s running out of knickers. We pass fields of cotton and the roadsides are littered with cotton tufts. Woody gets on the radio and tells her to pick some cotton up and just knit herself some new undies.

The Mullaley Roadhouse/pub/post office/caravan park has got the lot. Neat and tidy with well-mown level sites it’s impossible to miss as it’s at the intersection where the Black Stump Way meets the Oxley Highway. Coonabarabran is to the west, Gunnedah to the east.

We walk into the service station shop to pay our fee and the friendly owners tell us that lunch is served until 2:00pm. After that only drinks are available at the bar until 10:00pm. Sunday is their day off. We set up and wander over to the pub where a warm fire awaits. We all order the chicken parmigiana and both parmie and veggies are delicious. The meals are cooked out in the roadhouse and then raced across the garden to the pub dining room.

There’s only one other caravan here but VeeWee has bagged the best spot with an uninterrupted view across the valley. There’s a cold wind blowing so I sketch the pretty old pub from inside the van. Woody goes for a walk into ‘the village’ but there’s not a lot to see. The population was 174 in 2021.

We have an early happy hour back in the bar. There’s a steady trade of locals calling in and a bunch outside around a fireplace while about a hundred galahs peck the lawn out front. This is a great country pub and a pleasant stopover.