CONARGO Pub has an efficient way of making itself famous, writes FIONA MYERS

It's a strange phenomenon when a sticker is more famous than the place it comes from.

But that is true of the Conargo Pub, with its simple black-and-white sticker adorning vehicles across the nation.

The number of stickers plastered on the back of utes, on car windows and even caravans seems disproportionate to the size of the pub.

It is, however, the essential addition to a "B and S" ute, where it sits nestled among other, sometimes less tasteful, stickers on the back window or the tail gate.

The Conargo Hotel has long been a watering hole for the Riverina's youth, where jackaroos pull up in front of the southern NSW hotel for a get-together.

It was especially popular when big teams of jackaroos graced the district's vast stations, a place where they met each weekend to spend their hard-won wages.

Now, visitors, locals and still a few of the local remaining jackaroos fills the bar.

The pub's new general manager is Kerstin Linder, who took the job on a couple of months ago.

The former chef arrived in town with her husband and seven children, swelling the local population by a massive 20 per cent.

Since then, she's found her feet at the iconic pub and is gradually easing her way into finding out what the crowds like.

It has been a baptism of fire in some ways - in the first few weeks she hosted three bucks parties, put pizzas on the menu every night and offered meals on Friday and Saturday nights and a Sunday lunch.

There are few days off, but Ms Linder said that was part of being in the hospitality business, something she has had plenty of experience with.

She has fallen in love with both the pub and the little town that surrounds it, and finds the atmosphere in the Conargo Pub is immediately friendly to anyone who visits.

"We have no poker machines and we have no TAB (betting), so people come to the pub to socialise," she said.

"A lot of pubs you go into are just troughs, where you get a drink and go, but this one is warm and inviting."

Visitors also come to the pub to see the memorabilia on the walls, something for which the hotel is famous.

They are home to an amazing display of photographs of sheep - stud rams and ewes and their owners.

The walls are like a time line of sheep breeding, with magnificent framed photos of prize-winning rams and top-priced sheep.

There are also pictures of polocrosse teams, as well as fishermen and their catches, the ones that didn't get away.

The pub is steeped in history, and first opened at a site across the road in 1853. Since then it has served more than its fair share of beer and rum to thirsty locals and travellers.

While business is brisk on most days of the week and especially Friday nights, it is during ute muster time at Deniliquin that the pub really hums.

Ms Linder said a huge crowd usually made Conargo part of its itinerary on ute muster weekend each October, camping out near the pub or simply calling in for a drink.

There is also a new tradition emerging.

"Each ute muster, there are plenty of rum cans drunk, and the boys crush the cans and hang them on ropes they string around the town," Ms Linder said. "It ends up looking like a garland made out of Bundy cans."

Meanwhile, the pub does a brisk trade in beer and food, stubby holders and stickers.

"We usually sell about five stickers a day, even if there doesn't seem to be a soul about," Ms Lister said.

"We have some people who come in to just buy a sticker and don't even stop for a drink or a chat, which is a shame.

"But at least we don't have to spend any money on promotion - the stickers do that for us."