Bourke – is a rural & remote community in far north-western of  NSW. The town is located approximately 800 kilometres north-west of Sydney, on the south bank of the Darling River, which is known as the Barwon upstream from this point,and covers an area of over 40,000km+. The township of Bourke sits at the junction of three highways: the Kidman Way, Mitchell Highway and Kamilaroi Highway.

The  main industries in the Bourke Shire include cotton, soft fruit, citrus, cattle production, irrigated wheat, wild goat and kangaroo harvesting, and of course the wool industry, part of Bourke history since the 1860s.
At the 2006 census, Bourke had a population of 2,413, of whom 815 or 33% identified as Indigenous Australians. It was also formerly the largest inland port in the world for exporting wool on the Darling River.
Bourke is considered to represent the edge of the settled agricultural districts and is the gateway to the Outback!
This is reflected in the traditional Australian expression “Back o’ Bourke”, or as Henry Lawson wrote in 1893 ‘If you know Bourke, You know Australia’

Bourke Shire Council Representative for Outback Arts Board: Olga Collis-McAnespie

For further information visit the Bourke Shire website http://www.bourke.nsw.gov.au/