Stockinbingal looks like it has seen happier times. As you drive into town you can not help but notice the row of shops to one site, sadly just a couple remain open – a village store and the hotel. The original hotel was built in 1892 to cater for Cobb & Co coaches which would stopover on their journeys from Harden to Temora. Other shops appear to be preserved for prosperities sake, but the doors have been closed a while and are look likely to remain so.

The Commercial Hotel

The town is home to 244 people and its origins come from the railways for Stockinbingal is, according to Wikipedia “the location of a railway junction connecting the Cootamundra to Lake Cargelligo railway line (completed to Stockinbingal in 1893) to Parkes, which provides an alternative route from Sydney to Parkes to the route over the Blue Mountains, avoiding that route’s steep grades and is now as a result the major route for freight between Sydney and Perth. The route from Cootamundra to Stockinbingal and Parkes is also part of a rail bypass of Sydney for traffic between Melbourne and Brisbane via Dubbo, Werris Creek and Maitland.”

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The name, like many, is open to interpretation with some believing it means ‘full belly’ and other believing it is named after the local water supply, now known as Bland Creek. The creek was known to the Aborigines as Tocumbidgie or Tocumbimbil with ‘tocum’ meaning deep hole and either ‘bingara’ meaning creek or ‘bimbil’ meaning white leafed box tree. Sometime in the past the letters have got rearranged somewhat!

There is not a lot here for the visitor, although reading the history of some of the shops is interesting. Take the one pictured at the top here. This was the bakery and was originally opened in 1913 and operated until 1968.