Tibooburra, New South Wales

Tibooburra is a town in the far northwest of New South Wales, Australia, located 1187km from the state capital, Sydney. It is most frequently visited by tourists on their way to national parks in the area. At the, Tibooburra had a population of 262. Although facilities in Tibooburra are quite limited, fuel, meals and a range of accommodation options are available. All significant support services (medical, dental, hospital, retail, mechanical, commercial) are based in Broken Hill.New South Wales National Parks and Wildlife Service have a tourist information centre in the township. There is also a police station. There is an airstrip about 6 km. east of the village.HistoryExplorer Charles Sturt was one of the first Europeans to visit the area in 1844. He spent six months trapped by drought at Depot Glen, south of Tibooburra. He then tried to travel north west and was defeated by the desert. Burke and Wills also went through the area in 1861 on the journey north towards the Gulf of Carpentaria. It was the search for Burke and Wills that led to the opening up of the country for the pastoral industry.Following a gold rush to the Albert Goldfields (centred at nearby Milparinka), gold was found around Tibooburra in 1880. At first the area was called The Granites. When in 1881 the goldfields warden W.H.J. Slee (resident at Milparinka) had a town laid out he named it Tibooburra. Although he named the streets after European explorers, he preferred the Aboriginal name for the locality for the town. Slee had his observations on Aboriginal customs in the Tibooburra region published by the Linnean Society of NSW. The town's name could be derived from an Aboriginal word for heap of boulders. In 1887 Slee reported that there were 19 gold puddling machines at work, with a population at and about Tibooburra of 250. It was said that gold was found exposed in the streets after heavy rain.