Nyngan services the wool growing district around the Bogan River. The rainfall in the region is unreliable, but in favourable seasons wheat is grown.

Where is it?: Nyngan is situated by the Bogan River on the eastern edge of the Great Outback. It is located on the Mitchell Highway between Narromine and Bourke, 583 km north-west of Sydney and 173 metres above sea-level. The Barrier Highway also starts at Nyngan, heading west to Cobar.

Cobb & Co Heritage Trail

The historic inland coaching company, Cobb & Co, celebrated the 150th anniversary of its first journey in 2004. The trailblazing company's contribution to Australia's development is celebrated with the establishment of a heritage trail which explores the terrain covered on one of its old routes: between Bathurst and Bourke. Cobb & Co sites around Nyngan include the Nyngan Coach Works (visitors can see Cobb & Co coaches and Royal Mail vehicles being built and restored), the Heritage Coffee Shop (which has items from the coaching days), the post office, the Royal Hotel (on the riverbank, at the corner of Cobar and Nyngan Sts), Barrett's Hotel (in Nymagee St) and the Nyngan Museum. Also in the district are the ghost town of Canonba (once a thriving Cobb and Co coach terminal), the Buckiinguy property (once owned by Cobb & Co partner William Franklin Whitney, whose child is buried on the property), Duck Creek Bridge (the first bridge built west of Dubbo), built especially to facilitate Cobb & Co traffic, Larsen's Pub, the ruins of the Monkey and Willeroon change stations, and remnants of a zig-zag fence, especialy designed to allow Cobb & Co coaches to pass through stockyards without opening and closing gates.

Brief History

The district was originally inhabited by the Ngiyambaa Aborigines. Thomas Mitchell explored the Bogan River in 1835, camping on the future townsite. He recorded the local Aboriginal word 'nyingan', said to mean 'long pond of water', though other meanings have been put forward. Squatters had settled in Mitchell's wake before he had even begun the return journey. The acting botanist with the expedition was Richard Cunningham, the younger brother of noted explorer Allan Cunningham. He was killed by Aborigines 84 km south-east of Nyngan when he got lost after straying from the main party (a cairn marks the spot, near the locality of Tabratong).

This was not an isolated incident. Relationships with Aborigines on the lower Bogan River were characterised by conflict and, as a result, the government cancelled all pastoral licenses beyond the Derribong run in 1845. It is said that a massacre occurred in the area in 1842. Following the finding of five badly mutilated white men's bodies and a survivor with severe wounds, a police troop was sent to inflict punishment on the Aboriginal attackers. It is said three were killed and three arrested but it is believed that hundreds more Aborigines were subsequently killed. Certainly when Thomas Mitchell revisited the area in 1845 he was surprised by the absence of Aborigines when he had estimated a thousand to live along the river during his 1835 expedition. When word of the massacres reached Governor Gipps cancelled all squatting licenses.

The small town of Canonba was the first local settlement of any duration. It was established to the west of the Bogan and 28 km north-west of today's Nyngan. Cobb & Co made it a coach stop on the route north-west to Bourke and to the properties of the far west. Bushranger Charles Rutherford was shot by the owner of the Canonba Inn in 1867 while bailing up the establishment.

Nyngan was gazetted as a reserve for water in 1865 but a townsite was not reserved until 1880. It was surveyed in 1882 when the Dubbo-Bourke railway was under construction. The track arrived in Nyngan the following year, signalling the end of Canonba's existence. Symbolically enough, a number of houses from the older settlement were dismantled and re-erected at Nyngan in 1883. By this time the initial emphasis on cattle had been balanced by the grazing of merino sheep for their wool. Wheat-growing also began in the 1880s although unreliable rainfall has always been a problem, as the Bogan only flows after rain. The town received a secure water supply in 1942 when water was relayed along a 62-km canal from the Macquarie River.

Nyngan, little known in the east, entered the national psyche in 1990 when it was deluged with the worst floods of the century. The townspeople laid 260 000 sandbags on top of the established levee but the waters inundated the entire town, causing $50 million worth of damage and necessitating the airlift by helicopter of 2000 citizens, virtually the entire population. A national relief fund was established to help the town recover.