Weetalibah

Weetalibah (Gamilaraay-Yuwaalaraay, wood without fire) is a creek crossing and location about 25 kilometres north of Lightning Ridge on the Castlereagh Highway. The location marks a break between two ironstone ridges, which regularly allows floodwater from the north — often accumulated in south-eastern Queensland during wet seasons — to flow through to the Coocoran Lake.

Historically, Weetalibah has flooded many times, including recent significant flood events in 2010 and 2012.

“Major floods yet in memory in this part of Australia were 1910-11, 1916-17, 1929-31, 1949-50, 1954-55, and 1974. The Coocoran Lake filled in 1910, then again in 1950, 1956, 1974, 1976, 1983, and 1990.
In the 1950s, during the laying of telephone line across the Lake, 92 feet of black soil was measured. The subsequent flood measured 12 feet of water per posts set at the time. More recently, one saw the tops of fence posts.
In the late 1800s, Coocoran was a small freehold parcel of land, a portion of Wamell Pastoral Lease, on the far edge of the usually dry lake.”
— LRHS Snippets, Lightning Flash Newspaper, 18 January 2005

Weetalibah was a locality that had both a coach station and a hotel, with the latter being operated by innkeeper Joe Beckett, later famous for his formation of the mining syndicate that employed Charlie Nettleton to dig his first shaft on McDonald’s ridge, failing to find opal.

In 1914, a coach driver, James Henry Davidson, stopping for the night at Weetalibah was murdered by a Chinese man, George Chun, who stabbed him several times. The incident is recorded in newspaper articles of the time.

Murderer George Chun.

Arresting officer Constable Mussared.

Article: Research by Russell Gawthorpe and Leisa Carney, edited by Russell Gawthorpe. LRHS research compiled by Len Cram and Barbara Moritz. Sources: The Lightning Ridge Book, Stuart Lloyd, 1967, p. 153; Walgett Spectator, 18 June 1914, 8 June 1922; ‘Weetalibah Murder’, Daily Telegraph, 15 June 1914, p. 8; ‘Murder at Weetalibah - Mail Coachman Attacked’, The Sun, 5 June 1914, p. 9; ‘Weetalibah Tragedy: Chinaman Admits Crime’, Mudgee Guardian and North-Western Representative, 11 June 1914, p. 23; ‘Weetalibah Tragedy: A Mail Driver’s Death’, Daily Telegraph, 8 June 1914, p. 3; ‘Stabbed to Death: Alleged Murder’, Maitland Weekly Mercury, 13 June 1914, p. 7.