We can’t believe it’s already day five of the Variety Brydens Lawyers B to B Bash!

Bourke Public School hosted us for breakfast before we crossed the border into Queensland and made our way to Hungerford – an appropriate name for our lunch stop! Named after politician Thomas Hungerford, the town and surrounding area has a population of just 23 people. Writer and bush poet Henry Lawson wrote of Hungerford “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.”

Bourke Public School has 182 students, including many children living with a disability in this incredibly remote part of NSW. Variety granted the school new play equipment for their sensory room which will help students with sensory issues learn to regulate their brain’s negative reactions to external stimuli by developing coping skills for these experiences. The room will also be utilised by students with a variety of developmental challenges in the area of communication, movement and balance and social skills. The sensory room will also enable visiting services to complete therapy sessions with the students and allow for teachers and Support staff to continue the therapy during class time.

Next, we travelled north-east to Cunnamulla on the Warrego River. The township of Cunnamulla was created by Cobb & Co. who, on the 3rd September 1879, drove the first coach through from Bourke. Cunnamulla was one of many settlements which grew in South-West Queensland as a result of the activities of Cobb & Co., but it is the only one to have survived. In the 1880s farmers moved into the area and found the open plains to be perfect for sheep grazing. Today over two million sheep graze in the region’s pastures.