Outback icon the Two Storey Hotel has risen literally from the ashes, back and trading after a fire razed it early last year.
Built 1882 from local sandstone, the stalwart pub is one of two in the town of nearly 150 souls, but the only two-storey structure for hundreds of kilometres.
In February 2021 a serious fire ripped through the historic Hotel. Emergency services were initially called to attend a fire in a shed behind the hotel, but it quickly spread and crews from Silverton, 350 kilometres south, were summoned to help local firefighters.
Emergency services and passionate locals fought for more than five hours to bring the fire under control, leaving four people injured, including a fireman who was seriously hurt when a large gas bottle exploded.
The blaze collapsed the upper rooms into the downstairs bar and little remained beyond the stone exterior and some rooms at the northern end. The town’s power was off for more than a day as the ruins smouldered. Investigations later concluded the cause of the fire to be an electrical fault.
The pub has been in the hands of Tracey Hotchin’s family for three generations, and she vowed she would see it returned to its former glory.
Tibooburra is the most north-western precinct in NSW, almost 1200 kilometres from Sydney, near both the South Australian and Queensland borders.
Hotchin had invested considerable capex into the remote business, and was ready to begin construction on new motel rooms to the rear of the property.
However, the destruction proved small hurdle to her determination, and the business found ways to stay afloat up to and during the second wave of shutdowns in NSW, until a brush with the virus also shut the Two Storey in October.
But far from dissuaded by a close encounter of the viral kind, renovations ploughed on and in February locals were invited to celebrate the state of recovery one year on from the fire.
Cold beer is flowing again, the kitchen is cooking for a steady flow of customers each day, and the motel rooms are now “up and running” and in poetic counterpoint to the pub as the community hub, Hotchin told the ABC the town got them home.
“I can’t thank everybody enough for what they did in trying to save the pub,” she said.
“We’ve just received so much support throughout the journey. There’s a sense of happiness and obviously joy that we’re getting through it.”
