Black StumpInn

In 1886 a bullocky's wife named Barbara Blaine burned to death at a campfire near Merriwagga; her husband said she looked just like a black stump, and the town has run with it ever since — her memorial stands across the road from the pub. The hotel itself dates to 1926 and claims the tallest bar in the southern hemisphere, built, the story goes, so stockmen could drink without dismounting. Sharon Stuart has run it for twenty years in a town of thirty-eight. Meals in the dining room, rooms if you ring ahead, and the Kidman Way past the door.