Qualla: Mossgiel https://qualla.com/mossgiel-new-south-wales en-us © 2026 Bendyline Mon, 20 Jul 2026 10:21:28 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/r/4/n/d/mossgiel-new-south-wales-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: Mossgiel https://qualla.com/mossgiel-new-south-wales Mossgiel: Introduction https://qualla.com/mossgiel-new-south-wales/ Photo credit Mattinbgn, CC BY-SA 4.0. Today, the township of Mossgiel is a single house, a community hall, and a great deal of sky. The house was once the post office. The rest of the town, the two hotels, the stores, the blacksmith, the saddler, the school, has dissolved back into the saltbush plain it briefly interrupted. It is one of the loneliest spots on the long, straight Cobb Highway between Hay and the Darling, and its name carries an odd grace note: Mossgiel was named for a farm in Ayrshire, Scotland, the land worked by the poet Robert Burns and his brother Gilbert.

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]]> Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/r/4/n/d/mossgiel-new-south-wales-wp/r4nd-mossgiel-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Mossgiel: Wringing Water From the Plain https://qualla.com/mossgiel-new-south-wales/ Photo credit Mattinbgn, CC BY-SA 4.0. The plains around Mossgiel are flat to the point of disorientation, and the great problem was never space but water. In about 1864 the Desailly brothers, Francis and George, took up the Mossgiel and Booligal runs as "back block" stations, and the effort to keep stock alive was en...

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]]> Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/r/4/n/d/mossgiel-new-south-wales-wp/r4nd-mossgiel-wringing-water-from-the-plain.mp3 0:06 2 full Mossgiel: Two Pubs and No Town https://qualla.com/mossgiel-new-south-wales/ Photo credit Mattinbgn, CC BY-SA 4.0. When a coach service began running from Booligal toward the Darling River around 1868, a township sprouted along the route almost overnight. Robert Riordan opened the Mossgiel Hotel in 1869; William Carter followed with the Wool-pack Hotel that December. A post office, a store, a...

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]]> Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/r/4/n/d/mossgiel-new-south-wales-wp/r4nd-mossgiel-two-pubs-and-no-town.mp3 0:06 3 full Mossgiel: Drought, Then the Sand https://qualla.com/mossgiel-new-south-wales/ Photo credit Mattinbgn, CC BY-SA 4.0. The plains gave, and then they took. The Federation Drought of 1895 to 1903 emptied the district; stations closed to caretaker staff, the supply routes collapsed, and flour and fodder had to come by camel train from Wilcannia down to Ivanhoe and on to Mossgiel by coach. By early ...

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]]> Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/r/4/n/d/mossgiel-new-south-wales-wp/r4nd-mossgiel-drought-then-the-sand.mp3 0:06 4 full Mossgiel: The Railway That Passed It By https://qualla.com/mossgiel-new-south-wales/ Photo credit Mattinbgn, CC BY-SA 4.0. A town can survive drought and even burial, but not irrelevance. The blow that finished Mossgiel was quiet and bureaucratic: the railway, when it came, ran through Ivanhoe, thirty-five miles away, and not through Mossgiel at all. By 1936 the town had dwindled so far that the cott...

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]]> Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/r/4/n/d/mossgiel-new-south-wales-wp/r4nd-mossgiel-the-railway-that-passed-it-by.mp3 0:06 5 full