Pet Friendly
Conditions apply – Please enquire
Pet Friendly
Conditions apply – Please enquire
Food & Huts by Mt Oxley
Bourke Accommodation
Welcome to Food & Huts by Mt Oxley!
Rising from a perfectly flat landscape, Mt Oxley has outstanding 360 degree views, and showcases the abundance of wildlife, including Wedge-Tailed Eagles and Euros (Macropus Robustus), who inhabit the outcrop of the mountain. Photographers, birdwatchers and bushwalkers – the experience will be unmatched.
Bill and Denise were married in 1976 and have 3 grown children, Pip Claire and Tom, who like to return home when they can.
As both their families lived in the backcountry, around the Tilpa, Hungerford, Enngonia and Fords Bridge districts for many generations, they have lots of personal family history to tell. Ask about the connection of Bill’s Grandfather and Breaker Morant.... and Denise’ Great, Great, Great Grandparents were some of the first arrivals to Bourke in 1862. They love their life and enjoy sharing it with their visitors.
Bill and Denise are founding members of Outback Beds and are very passionate about giving you an ultimate outback experience.
Welcome
Mobile Coverage: Mobile phones on Telstra network will work out in this area. Optus will work on top of Mt Oxley only. Vodaphone doesn't work in this area.
Geology of Mount Oxley
Mount Oxley and the Oxley Range (the low hills to the northeast of Mount Oxley) are composed of quartz-rich sandstone and conglomerate - called the Mulga Downs Group. They are Devonian in age - approximately 410 to 370 million years old. They were most likely deposited in a fluvial (i.e. river) environment. The river system must have been broad and quite high energy, as many of the clasts are rounded, suggesting they have been 'tumbled' along in a river bed, and there are conglomerates as well as sandstones. (Think of a high energy mountain river, rather than the low energy, meandering river like the current-day Darling River). They consist of thick beds of fine to medium grained sandstone and some pebbly conglomerate. Although the beds look as if they are flat-lying, the beds are actually dipping very shallowly (<5 degrees). The rounded clasts within the conglomerates include clasts of white quartz, granite (probably about 420 million years old) and metamorphosed sedimentary rocks (probably around 475 million years old).
The matrix of the sandstone and conglomerate is very fine grained quartz which is the reason the rocks are so hard, and they make such a ping when you hit them with a hammer! It is also the reason they form prominent hills - they are very resistive to weathering. There would have been more extensive deposition of the Mulga Downs Group than what we see today. But tectonic uplift and weathering have left us with sporadic outcrops. The Mulga Downs Group is found over a wide area in western NSW, locally at Gunderbooka Range, Bedemeer Mountain and at Mount Druid - but also further afield at Mount Grenfell near Cobar and Mutawintji National Park near Broken Hill. Fish and other fossils found elsewhere in the Mulga Downs Group help constrain the age of the rocks - though only one, non-diagnostic fish scale has been found at Mount Oxley to date.
An interesting feature at the base of Mount Oxley is an angular unconformity. Stop where the gate is - where the road changes from dirt to tar - and look in the gutter next to the road and walk downhill. You will see slate-like rocks that are almost vertically dipping in the base of the gutter (particularly where the gutter curves away from the road). These rocks are most-likely Ordovician to Silurian in age - so they are approximately 475 to 440 million years old. They were deposited on a continental slope in deep marine water, probably in a turbidity current in a submarine fan. (Probably in an environment like the 10 km off the coast of Sydney.) Overlying these slates are some conglomerates and the almost flat-lying Mulga Downs Group. We call this an angular unconformity because you have flat lying rocks overlying steeply dipping rocks - this represents a dramatic change in geological conditions with a time gap of 30 to 75 million years or so between the two rock packages. In this time the environment changed from a deep marine environment to a high energy river environment.
The flat areas you drive over to get to Mount Oxley are Quaternary and modern alluvial soils and sands related to the Darling and Bogan river floodplains. (Credit: Geological Survey of New South Wales)
Our Town
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"If you know Bourke, you know Australia" so wrote the famous Australian poet Henry Lawson in 1882. Although Bourke is a town, it is something that is etched in the psyche of Australia and is commonly used as a reference point to the start of the true Outback. 'Back o Bourke' is a colloquial term for something a long way from anywhere. But being a long way from somewhere is a relative term in Australia as something several hundred kilometres away can sometimes be referred to.
The open fire place is terrific for cool evenings and there is a gas BBQ outside.Self catering or Dinner Bed and Breakfast packages by arrangement.
