Bourke

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Sunday morning we enjoyed some wonderful sunshine on our backs and throughout the day temperatures reached 21o – bliss! A lot of vans left this morning, but by 11 o’clock the next lot had started to roll in; it appears to be a constant moving feast during the peak season.



We drove back into town to do a little bit of sightseeing. First stop was to look at a mural on the Bourke Water Tower of Gundabooka man, Percy Hobson. At age 20 he was the first Indigenous athlete to win a gold medal at the 1962 Commonwealth Games inPerth when he broke the record for high jump, leaping over a 6’11” bar.



A visit to the Back ‘O Bourke Centre was most interesting telling the story of the Darling River as well as stories of local identities and legends. There was some audio play describing their hardship, tenacity, spirit and mateship.



The Centre comprises several corrugated iron buildings linked by a boardwalk through native gardens. The first was an auditorium for the purpose of showing a short film on the Darling from the perspective of indigenous peoples.



One of the legends of Bourke is Professor Fred Hollows, the renowned doctor of ophthalmology. From the early 1970’s Fred devoted his life to the treatment of trachoma in the underprivileged both in outback Australia as well as Nepal, Eritrea and Vietnam where he trained “barefoot doctors” to perform the cataract operation. He is famous for saying “Every eye is an eye. When you are doing surgery there that is just as important as if you were doing eye surgery on the Prime Minister or King.”

We found his grave at the local cemetery, marked by a huge granite rock. The original sandstone rock that was carved by local aborigines bears the inscription: “Fred Hollows Eye Doctor The key he used to unlock doors was vision for the poor”.



Back to the van for one more night and then tomorrow – over the border!

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