Bourke is an outback town on the Darling River, far enough from Sydney that "back of Bourke" became Australian shorthand for the middle of nowhere. It is still a service town for a huge dry district, but that remoteness is also the reason to come.
The town was briefly imagined as an inland port, with paddle steamers carrying produce down the Murray-Darling system. The replica Old Bourke Wharf and the Back O' Bourke Exhibition Centre tell that story well enough to make the river more than scenery.
Bourke is also a base for nearby outback landscapes. Gundabooka National Park has Aboriginal rock art and red ranges south of town, while North Bourke adds a small gallery and the old sense of life on the edge of the settled map.