Back Roads: Feb 4

Back Roads is back for season 6 in its new Thursday night slot.

This week host Heather Ewart visits Cobar, NSW, where she meets the stoic locals who want to keep the community together, while trying to discover what it is that makes people fight so hard for Cobar.

Heather Ewart visits the mining town of Cobar, NSW, where the burnt red earth is the first sign of what lies beneath. Copper might be the reason Cobar exists, but it’s also the cause of a transient population with many miners flying in and flying out.

Heather meets those who are proud to call themselves locals and who are working harder than ever to keep this small community thriving, including Lillian Brady, Cobar’s 90-year- old Mayor! With 20 years as mayor and nearly 40 years as a councillor, Lilliane’s famous for playing hard ball with the politicians and refusing to take ‘no’ for an answer.

Cobar wouldn’t exist if it wasn’t for mines. But the mines wouldn’t exist if it weren’t for the local Ngiyampaa people who first showed the Europeans where to find the copper. Local Elder Elaine Ohlson recalls living in the missions as a young girl as well as her long fight to try and reclaim the land for the Ngiyampaa people.

You don’t have to dig too deep to see what makes Cobar work. There’s clearly more to the red dirt in Cobar than meets the eye.

Production credits: Executive Producer, Brigid Donovan. Story Producer, Damian Estall.

8pm Thursday on ABC.