Royal Hotel Carcoar

Yet another very short drive up the road from the brilliant Royal Hotel Mandurama was our 4th and penultimate stop along Light Beer Lane: the Royal Hotel Carcoar.

The first thing that hits you about Carcoar is how beautiful of a little town it is. I stopped counting how many times John used the phrase “It’s a freaking movie set” after about seven or so. And to be fair, the main street of the town is a postcard from 1950’s Australia (which I mean in the absolute best, most sepia-toned way possible).

The Royal itself was a good solid one. A relaxed front bar filled with cheerful beer-drinking, dart-playing locals. And an area along the main street where we pulled up a chair, enjoyed a schooner, and made repeated comments regarding the town resembling a movie set.

The big notable thing about this particular Royal, however, was that it could be yours! That’s right, the Royal Hotel Carcoar is for sale! So if you’ve been sitting there reading this blog over the past several months, pining for a life revolving around a Royal Hotel, this is your chance.

I’m not going to do the real estate agent’s job for them, but for a price in the 6-figures, this Royal Hotel (along with a significant chunk of land and river frontage) could be yours. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t give it a good ponder. I mean, owning a country pub, let alone a Royal is dream for many. Especially (but not exclusively) for many dads. It’s right up there with owning a ride-on mower and taking a catch in the crowd at the cricket. But in the end, quitting my job, uprooting the family and moving them hundreds of kilometers to Carcoar seemed like it might be a bridge too far. But I highly encourage any reader to seize this opportunity so that I might live vicariously through you.

One other cool, but un-Royal-related, tidbit we learned in our visit to Carcoar was about the local church, St Paul’s. Through a combination of a note posted onto the community notice board in 2021 and some googling over a schooner, we found that the local community had successfully raised enough money to purchase the church from the local diocese.

Um, well…good for them, you might say. But the backstory is that the Carcoar locals had apparently been putting money into their church for years to make it extremely nice and a point of community pride. The diocese in turn went “hmmm, that’s quite a nice church, let’s sell it off to pay for all of these historical sex abuse settlements”. Not cool Catholic church. So the locals went on a mad last ditch fundraising drive to buy the church themselves and succeeded with a couple of days to go.

Now I admit that there’s a chance I might not have gotten every detail of the story correct. But if you can’t trust Wikipedia and a 2-year-old note tacked to a notice board, who can you trust?

I’ve got to say, I thoroughly enjoyed our short stop in Carcoar. It’s not the fanciest Royal or the quaintest Royal we’ve hit on the tour so far. But it’s a good solid Royal and well worth a stop. Even if the toilet did have two “hot taps”.

Royal Stats

• Town/Suburb: Carcoar, NSW
• Population: 200
• Date Visited: Sunday, November 27, 2022
• Visited By: Cory & John
• Beer Sponsorship on Sign: Toohey’s New
• Beer Consumed at Pub: XXXX
• Price of Schooner of Said Beer: $7.40
• Unique Award: Best Chance to Own a Royal
• Tour Progress: 12.5% (17/136)