The white cliffs hotel was first built on the site where it is today in 1888. it was burnt down in 1956 and the building that is still standing today was rebuilt by Ken Kraft in 1962 and is now owned by Geoffrey Hodgins.
Relax at the White Cliffs Hotel, where you can meet and mingle with tourists & locals alike. Prop your elbow on the bar & wash the dust away with a refreshing ale. Swap yarns about the day, enjoy a hearty pub meal with the newly up and running outdoor eating and bar area and watch the sunset over another glorious outback day.
Coaches and fly-ins welcome.
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Comments (3)
KEN CRAFT
Hi guys im a grand son of Ken Craft who owned rebuilt and operated your pub way back when. My mother is Leonie Craft (Lyons) i grew up hearing many stories of this pub from mum and from pop who is sadly not with us now. Id like to take mum out to stay maybe in January she has never been back to the pub since leaving and getting married etc. can you give me some idea what a week stay would cost it would be for a party of at least four.?
Ken Kraft
Rees,
I am planning to write a memoir and Googled White Cliffs to check out some old memories and came across your message about Ken Kraft. As a student at Sydney University I motorcycled to White Cliffs in 1964 to try my hand at opal digging for a month. It was quite an experience. Not many lived there and the pub was the centre of everything. Ken Kraft seemed to run the place (in a very good way) and had many stories to tell. It illustrated to me how one good person in a place like that could make a real difference. Some really interesting people lived at White Cliffs, many whom would be misfits living in a town. On my first day there, Ken introduced me to a couple of miners at the pub who took me under their wing and gave me a bed in their underground abode. I helped them with their mining operations and tagged along during the many hours they spent at the pub (although I was only a very light drinker). At Christmas the pub organised a party for all the kids that lived in the area and in the evening all the men dressed as women and the women as men (apparently a local tradition). I remember your mother, Leonie, as an attractive and lively girl, who, helped apply lady's makeup to the men (it was all rather bizarre in a macho male place like White Cliffs but was harmless fun and everyone had a ball). It was a Christmas I shall never forget.
At the end of my stay the two miners persuaded me to let them sell my best pieces of opal and promised they would send me a cheque for the proceeds. Of course, I never heard from them again but I still cherish the many experiences gained in having shared their lives for a month and have never resented their broken promise. I expect I indirectly made a contribution to beer sales at the pub!
I later moved to New Zealand where I was a university lecturer for 40 years (at 70 I am now retired) but still have an adult son and daughter in Australia. I migrated to Australia from England when I was 19 and quickly fell in love with all things Australian. Australia has changed greatly since then, especially in the cities, but my memories of Ken Kraft and White Cliffs epitomise for me the pioneering nature of outback Australia at that time.
I guess this is a belated tribute to Ken but I hope you and your mother get to read this.
Mike Shepherd
love white cliffs
I love White Cliffs NSW