(3days)

One and a half hours away from Junee is another small town called Barmedman. The town is popular for its large, said-to-be therapeutic mineral pool. Since T’s plan of swimming in the ocean every day didn’t happen, we settled for the next best thing, which was swimming in this mineral pool. The entrance fee /donation was just $1 per entry and the camping fee was $10 per night(3 nights max). Fees were paid in a donation box and were run by honesty or trust system.

To be honest, it was not very inviting to swim in it…but after reading about all its mineral content, well…how could I say no? 🤣

STORY TIME:

(Warning: I didn’t fact-check most information in this story. Our internet connection was very bad, and I didn’t wanna go to the library or town council to check🤣This was just for my family and friends to have an idea of how what the Aussie outback community felt like.)

Barmedman used to be a gold mining town. Here’s something from a poster by the road:  Gold was discovered here in 1872 by the wife of a wood sawyer working at  Barmedman station..her name? Mrs. Treasure. 🙂

It’s a small town with a population of 100, according to Marilyn, or 200, according to H. (Sorry if this information is wrong.) M, H, T-the-Russian (as they referred to her..nothing racist or anything), etc. were local volunteers running both the mineral pool and the ONLY coffee/second-hand shop that’s open in town. If M was right, T was thrilled to have spoken to 10% of the town population. Not bad for a self-proclaimed introvert. 🤣 They were all very welcoming. The police, Ton, stopped by and caught up with us twice. We were touched by the gesture. I jokingly told T, “You probably looked dodgy that was why.” 😂

Anyway, we asked M where could T watch his footy when she stopped by the mineral pool to do her volunteer stuff (as I’ve said, we had very poor internet connection). Thirty minutes later, we walked into the only cafe in town, and the volunteers in there asked “Are you the one looking for where to watch the footy?” Apparently, T’s question became the town’s mystery to be solved. Everyone’s looking and trying to help T find a place. One lady even invited us to her house to watch…but we were a little embarrassed to do that, so, we didn’t. We went to West Wyalong to watch it instead.

On a serious note, when I hear people say “shop local”, I just hear it, and sometimes just don’t take it too seriously. But then again, you see a town like Barmedman, and then feel guilty about not shopping locally. With almost all their shops closed (the church, commercial properties, etc being sold as residential. I heard a child screaming from the tightly closed pub, and thought it was haunted.😂), one could truly see the effects if people weren’t shopping locally….it was sad (to me). But the good thing was, the residents weren’t sad at all. Almost everyone we spoke with was happy and satisfied with the community (that feels like a family) they’ve created. I guess that’s what’s important. 😍

Where did we stay?

Barmedman Mineral Pool Campsite by $10 donation (Max 3Days): It wasn’t busy when went there. The site was very spacious. A hot shower costs $1 per 4mins. Toilet and showers were quite clean considering it was only run by volunteers. A few meters from the pool is a cafe also run by volunteers. They were all beautiful people. Amazing and welcoming community. It made Barmedman more special in my opinion.