The Kidman Way

On a clear western night, travellers approaching Cobar could see a sky filled with blazing red light and intermittent splashes of silver and gold. It was 1911, and they were seeing the Great Cobar Copper Mine smelter at its height.  In its boom years, Cobar had a population topping 15,000. They were miners and graziers, business men and women, labourers, developers and entrepreneurs, hard-working folk who built the Great Cobar Copper Mine into a national showcase of industrial technology and turned the town into a byword for success. At its height, the Great Cobar led Australia in the production of copper, processing ore at the rate of 1,000 tons per day. Record quantities of rich gold deposits and other minerals were also discovered in the immediate vicinity. 

Museum visitors can explore the building and the extensive yard displays, peeling back layers of mining, pastoral, Aboriginal and social history.  What will be your highlight? – the balcony view, the stunning mineral display, the intriguing “mystery” objects, the Royal Far West Railway Carriage… there is so much to see.

The open-cut has seen many Cobar locals take a dip there on a sweltering Summer’s day and many children, in decades past, have learned to swim in it’s blue-green waters. The open-cut has been a place of discovery for many generations of Cobar children. Kids collected pigeon eggs from the old mine shafts, and herds of goats lived there at one time. The open-cut was created by men who were employed over 100 years ago to undertake the back-breaking job of digging the huge hole. Using picks and shovels and horse and cart, the men removed rock from this quarry to be used as backfill for the underground mine stops in the “cut and fill” method.

Just over the road from the Great Cobar Heritage Centre, the park was completed in August 2002 to commemorate the miners who lost their lives in Cobar mines. Some of the objects which can be viewed at the park are: a two metre bronze sculpture of a miner, a restored stamper battery from the Mount Boppy Mine, a fifteen metre high poppet-head from the New Cobar Mine, a loader from the CSA Mine and the headframe and winder from the Old Chesney Mine.

For many decades Cobar had no permanent water supply, although an area approximately 3 kilometres north of Cobar and called the “Old Res”, was Cobar’s first water supply. Due to the sporadic nature of rain, lack of water was a big problem for Cobar residents for many years. Water was delivered to Cobar residents by train up until the 1960’s when the pipeline from Nyngan was completed. Today the “Old Res” is used for recreation and water sport. Located near the “Old Res”, Devil’s Rock is an ancient rock formation which features strongly in Aboriginal legend. It was here that the Ngemba people carried out their ceremonial rites. Access to Devil’s Rock is via a 1 kilometre walking track from the “Old Res”. A large variety of bird-life and wild-life can be observed in this area.

Eight kilometres South of Cobar, on the Kidman Way, is the site of Peak Gold Mines. The original Peak Gold Mine was opened in 1896 and in 1906 was purchased by the Great Cobar Copper Mining Co. At this time, underground mining only proceeded to a depth of approximately 90 metres. Following the closure in 1920 of the Great Cobar Copper Mining Co., small operators worked the Peak mines on and off until the early 1950’s. In the 1970’s Cobar Mines Pty Ltd diamond drilling exploration program located high grade gold in the deeper mineral zones of the Peak.

The recently sealed walk starts at the Great Cobar  Heritage Centre and moves south along Lewis  Street and the edge of the Open Cut, past the Slag  Dump and around the back of the Golf Course in  front of the Rugby Union Oval. The track winds  over the bank of a small ground tank past the  Rugby Union Oval and through scrub and bush  before reaching the “Newey” or New Tank. It  does a loop on the bank of the New Tank and  continues around the New Tank and drops off into  Tindera Street and Woodiwiss Avenue and back  into the CBD. Alternatively, the walk continues  south behind Jones Drive and links up with a  bicycle/walking path that leads about 2km south.  The walker then returns north into town. The  walk can be completed comfortably in  approximately 2 hours.  Maps of the Centenary of Federation Walk can be  obtained at the Great Cobar Heritage Centre. 

Founded as the Great Cobar Copper Mining Co in 1870, it was one of the largest mining and processing operations in the world at the time. The Great Cobar Mine situated on a slight ridge and facing West over the Cobar township, would have been a magnificent sight. Huge smelters, a 64 metre chimney stack and electric generators supplied lighting for the whole town. Over 2000 employees were engaged in mining, wood carting and smelting at the height of the activity. The main mine shafts of the Great Cobar, located south of the Museum building and now fenced off, have deep shafts running down to 430 metres. Remains of the smelter foundations are visible from the top of the hill, east of the Heritage Centre.