Wagga Wagga from the air

 

Wagga Wagga (including Wantabadgery and Forest Hill)
Major city in the heart of the Riverina
Situated on the Murrumbidgee River, Wagga Wagga is NSW's largest inland city and is considered the capital of the Riverina area of NSW. Halfway between Sydney and Melbourne and a two-and-a-half hour drive from Canberra, it is 214 m above sea-level and has a population of approximately 57 000. The name derives from a local Aboriginal word meaning 'place of many crows'.

'Wagga,' as it is known, is a city of fine buildings, tree-lined streets, parks and gardens. The surrounding area consists of properties dedicated to wheat-growing, dairying, mixed farming and fat lambs. It possesses one of the largest stockyards in Australia, as well as the Livestock Marketing Centre, which processes around1.5 million sheep and 130 000 cattle annually. With the Charles Sturt University and the Riverina Institute of TAFE, Wagga is an important regional education centre and, with the Kapooka Army Recruit Training Base and a Royal Australian Air Force base, it is also regarded as one of the country's major defence force establishments.

The first human inhabitants of the area were the Wiradjuri peoples. There was some early pastoral settlement in the 1820s but it was the 1829 exploration of the river system by Charles Sturt and party which opened the area up to settlers, mostly from the Gundagai area. Runs were established on the south and north banks of the Murrumbidgee in 1832 by Robert Best (who owned the Wagga Wagga station and built a homestead there in 1832), and Charles Tompson.

The site became an important river crossing, situated as it was at the intersection of the north-south track between NSW and Victoria and the east-west track along the Murrumbidgee. The first crop farming occurred in 1846. A police building and court premises were established in 1847 and Wagga was proclaimed a town in 1849. A punt service opened the following year and, in 1851, the first store opened. Development faltered with the floods of 1852-53 but, being on the main thoroughfare to the goldfields, Wagga ultimately benefited from the through-traffic becoming an important stock sales centre in the late 1850s.

The paddle steamers of the inland river system began operations in the 1850s and the first one arrived at Wagga in 1858 but the importance of the road links always overshadowed the steamer trade. The last steamer to visit Wagga arrived in 1905.

The first Anglican church was built in 1860, a school opened in 1861 and a gaol replaced the old lock-up in 1862; prisoners previously being chained to a log while awaiting their hearing.

A toll bridge across the river, opened in 1862, was replaced in 1895 by the Hampden Bridge, which is still standing. This helped Wagga to compete with Gundagai and Albury which had prospered as river crossings due to their bridges.

Wagga Wagga received some attention in the country's media and in England when one Thomas Castro moved to the town in 1864 and claimed to be Roger Tichborne, the heir of a Hampshire baronetcy who was believed drowned when the ship he was travelling on disappeared off South America. Although his claim was accepted by Roger Tichborne's mother, the trustees of the estate rejected his claim, giving rise to a civil action which proved to be the longest case heard in English legal history. In 1874 he was sentenced to 14 years gaol for perjury when it was resolved that he was in fact Arthur Orton, a butcher. Wagga's subsequent international notoriety was sufficient to draw Mark Twain when he visited Australia in the 1890s.

The town's population swelled from around 1000 in 1870 to nearly 4000 by 1881. The area's fertility encouraged diversity of primary production, including wool, wine and especially wheat. The successful experiments of William Farrer at the Wagga Wagga Experimental Farm (now the Wagga Agricultural Research Institute) in the 1890s produced new disease-resistant strains and higher yields and the soldier settlement schemes after the two world wars further expanded local wheat production.

 

Wagga Railway Station

 

The railway arrived in North Wagga in 1878 with a 2500-m trestle built across the Murrumbidgee in 1879 to allow the line to continue to South Wagga. The longest railway trestle in NSW, it was extended in 1879 and renewed with steel in 1910.

The years from 1880-1920 were a period of modest growth after the boom of the 1870s. Large pastoral holdings around the town were broken up for closer settlement. Fruit-growing and dairying were added to the local economy. The first cinematograph arrived in 1897 and electricity in 1922. With continuing expansion Wagga was declared a city in 1946.

The Wagga district had several run-ins with bushrangers in the 1860s and 1870s. Wagga police magistrate Henry Baylis was held up by Mad Dan Morgan in 1863 and was shot and wounded when he and some policemen tracked Morgan to his camp. Morgan expressed his contempt for the Wagga police when, wanted dead or alive, he attended the Wagga Christmas races in 1864, walking freely among the police, attending the race meeting luncheon and sitting nearby the police magistrate without detection.

The notorious 'Blue Cap' was sentenced to 10 years hard labour at Wagga court in 1868 but was released in a general amnesty in 1874 and never heard from again. James Kelly, younger brother of the famous Ned Kelly, was also sentenced to ten years gaol at Wagga courthouse in 1877 after being convicted of stealing two horses from two Wagga hoteliers. He had just completed four years for cattle theft, a sentence he began serving at the age of 15. When released he led a respectable life and lived until 1946.

However, 'Captain Moonlite' (Andrew Scott) is the bushranger most often associated with the district. An articulate and well-informed man with a colourful past, he completed a prison sentence in 1879 for a robbery committed while he was acting as a lay preacher at Egerton, near Ballarat.

After being released from gaol he spoke on the subject of prison reform then roamed the countryside with five young and inexperienced young men in dire circumstances. On November 15, 1879, they requested work at Wantabadgery Station, 38 km east of Wagga, but were turned away. They soon returned and bailed up 39 people at the station.

Some accounts suggest 'Moonlite' terrorised the household, casting himself in the role of judge and executioner at a 'trial' of three neighbours who were sentenced to hang for carrying arms against the bushrangers. He apparently relented due to the pleas and distress of the women. He seems to have shot at least one horse through the head, allegedly because it reared when he roughly mounted her, although other accounts say he killed several.

After being alerted by an escapee hostage three policemen arrived from Wagga at four in the morning but they retreated under fire. The bushrangers headed off, stopping at McGlede's farmhouse. While there, police reinforcements from Gundagai and Adelong arrived and a shoot-out proceeded in which two of the bushrangers (one aged 15) were killed. One trooper died from his wounds six days later.The others surrendered (one, Rogan, thought to have escaped, was found hiding under a bed in the McGlede homestead the next day). Scott eloquently and passionately defended himself and protested his innocence but to no avail. After initially being sentenced to death, Thomas Williams and Graham Bennett were granted mercy due to their youth (20 and 19) and the belief that they were led into crime by Scott. They were sentenced instead to hard labour for life. Williams was executed in Berrima Gaol in 1885 for stabbing a fellow inmate while Bennett may have spent time in, or even died in, the same gaol.

Rogan (22) was not spared and he and 'Captain Moonlite' were hanged in 1880 at Darlinghurst Gaol (see entries on Bacchus Marsh and Gundagai for further information on 'Moonlite').

Sir Thomas Blamey was born at Lake Albert in 1884,the son of a farmer and drover. In the Second World War Blamey was commander of the allied land forces in the South-West Pacific and deputy to General MacArthur. He became the commander-in-chief of the Australian forces and the country's first field marshal in 1950.

The town has also been home to a number of Australian writers, such as poets Mary Gilmore (who grew up and taught here), Barcroft Boake, and Frank Moorhouse (who worked as a journalist on the Daily Advertiser). More recently another Wagga lad, Mark Taylor, earned fame as Australian test cricket batsman and captain.

 

 

Things to see:  

Wagga Wagga Regional Art Gallery and National Art Glass Collection
The Wagga Wagga Regional Art Gallery, situated in the Civic Centre, at the corner of Morrow and Baylis Sts, showcases a range of traveling exhibitions throughout the year. Just a few steps away, the Glass Collection contains one of the largest collections of studio glass in the country. It is open from 10.00 a.m. to 5.00 p.m. from Tuesday to Saturday, from midday to 4.00 p.m. on Sundays and it is closed Mondays, tel: (02) 6926 9660. There is no admission charge.

 

The Museum of the Riverina
Also located in the Civic Centre, the Museum features displays at two different sites. The Historical Museum is located on Lord Baden Powell Drive, opposite the botanic gardens. It features displays relating to the people, places and events surrounding the town's history. One of its possessions is a bullet fired by bushranger Dan Morgan in 1863. It is housed in Yallowin Hut (1834), which originally stood on the now-flooded Tumut Valley. There is also a Wagga Sporting Hall of Fame at the same location. It is open from 10.00 a.m. to 5.00 p.m. from Tuesday to Saturday, from midday to 4.00 p.m. on Sundays and it is closed Mondays.

The Museum of the Riverina Historic Council Chambers site, at the Civic Centre (cnr Morrow and Baylis Sts) displays a range of traveling exhibitions throughout the year. There is no admission charge to either site.

 

Botanic Gardens
Located at the corner of Macleay St and Lord Baden Powell Drive, the Gardens feature a mini zoo, a free-flight aviary, themed plantings and miniature trains operate for children and families on the first and third Sundays of the month. There is no admission fee to the gardens.

 

Historic Buildings
The visitor's centre at the corner of Tarcutta and Morrow Sts has a pamphlet outlining a walk which takes in some of the town's historic buildings. In Cross St is the Gothic Revival architecture and particularly fine spire of St Andrew's Presbyterian Church and manse (c.1890).

Turn into Church St and on your right is St John's Church of England, begun in 1876 according to a design of William Blacket, although extensive alterations and additions have greatly changed its character. The main window is from an English church and of an unknown age. One of the memorial tablets is to Corporal John Edmondson who was posthumously awarded a Victoria Cross in 1941 for an act of bravery which saved an officer's life at Tobruk.

On the other side of the road is St Michael's Catholic Cathedral, erected in two stages. The original structure (1885-87) served as a parish church and the second stage (1922-25) converted it into a large Victorian Gothic sandstone cathedral. Some highlights are the gothic arches, some beautifully crafted marble in the altar and the Edwardian presbytery, the 'Bishop's House' (1910) which has some impressive timber detailing around the verandahs, bay windows and gables.

Turn right into Johnston St and then take the path to Wagga Beach and Cabarita Park, nicely floodlit in the evenings. Follow the footpath along the levee bank to Sturt St where you will find the red brick police station (1880s and 1927) and the Sturt Monument which commemorates the completion of the Flood Levee Banks in 1960.

 

The Court House

 

Turn left into Fitzmaurice St and, on your left, is the outstanding Edwardian courthouse complex (1900). With its massive square clock tower, belltower, cupolas, decorative iron work and cedar joinery and fittings it is considered one of the finest of its type in Australia. The National Bank building (1885) and post office (1886-88) are two fine buildings in the Classical Revival style which also make significant contributions to the cityscape.

Turn right into Johnston St and walk to its end passing the ANZ Bank and some lovely old homes which have been converted into offices. When you reach the T-intersection return up Johnston to Trail St and turn right over the lagoon bridge and enter the Victory Memorial Gardens (1928) on the banks of the Wollundry Lagoon. Here are an avenue of poplar trees, a life-sized copper sculpture of the Jolly Swagman boiling his billy near the commemorative arch, the Pioneer Memorial Sundial, a sunken garden, a senses garden for the blind, a children's play area, picnic facilities, swans, duck, geese, waterfowl, fish and tortoises.

Walk through the gardens and cross over Baylis St. There on the other side are the Council Chambers set in the Civic Gardens, built in 1881, though they have had sympathetic modern additions. If you turn into Morrow St and then left into Burns Way you can wander through the rose gardens and past the Civic Theatre on the right and back into Tarcutta St and the visitor's centre.

The town's oldest-surviving building is a little slab cottage in Gardiner St dating back to the 1830s or early 1840s. Also of note are Wagga South Public School in Edward St (1890-91 and 1900), and, in Baylis St, the railway station (1880-81) with its award-winning gardens, and the Union Club Hotel (1851-58), the only old building in town to retain its original lacework verandah.

 

 

The Murrumbidgee River at Wagga

 

Wiradjuri Walking Track
The Wiradjuri Walking Track is 30 km in length though it can be subdivided into numerous shorter subsections. Starting from the visitor's centre, where a related map is available, it follows the Murrumbidgee for 1 km to the viaduct (1880 and late 1890s), continues through town and up Willands Hill, where you will find one of the city's highlights, the lush green lawns and attractions of the Botanic Gardens and Zoo. The Chinese Pavilion in the camellia garden was a gift from Kunming to Wagga Wagga. The Tree Chapel has trees and shrubs of biblical significance set into the side of the hill. There is also a rough-hewn cross and altar. The Shakespearian Garden is designed as a knot garden, popular in Elizabethan England, with formal beds planted in patterns and clipped into shape. There is a cactus and succulent garden, a tree nursery, a rose garden, a rainforest area, an aviary, restaurant and music bowl, a miniature railway on the first and third Sundays of the month, a barbecue area, children's farm and play area, fitness trails and a collection of fauna.

The track continues on to a vantage point from which Lake Albert can be seen with the Alps in the distance. Covering 125 ha the lake was made in the 1890s on what was known as Swampy Plain and was named after Prince Albert. It is an ideal spot for waterskiing, boating, swimming, fishing and other aquatic activities.

The track then veers west to the historic railway tunnel (made in the late 1870s by the English bond method of brick construction common in the Empire at the time) and Pomingalarna Park with its fine views of the city. The reserve was named after a run held from the 1850s by a family who had a general store in town from 1872 to 1953. South of this reserve are the remains of a 19th-century goldmining shaft.

From here the track descends to a flood-plain and Flowerdale Lagoon. The Flowerdale homestead dates from 1853 after the 1852 flood caused the Best family to move from the old homestead. The next stop is Wiradjuri Reserve, the old wharf and Hampden Bridge. The wharf, 200 m downstream of the bridge, is a leftover from the riversteamer days. From here the track reaches Wagga Beach and returns to the visitor's centre. The Wollundry Loop is a 10-km loop track which essentially forms a subsection of the Wiradjuri track.

 

Vineyards and Wineries
Wagga Wagga Winery is housed in a building of cypress pine log construction with extensive verandahs, hessian ceilings and a large open fireplace. Situated in rustic surrounds near the Murrumbidgee it has an impressive mural and a collection of Australian memorabilia. It is open seven days a week from 11 to late and is located at 427 Oura Rd, tel: (02) 6922 1221. Lunch and dinner are available from $15 per person.

The Charles Sturt University Winery and Cheese Factory is on the grounds of Charles Sturt University, on Coolamon Rd, 9 km north of the city centre. It is open from 11.00 a.m. to 5.00 p.m. on weekdays and from 11.00 a.m. to 4.00 p.m. on weekends. Ring (02) 6923 2435 for group booings. Tours of the cheese factory occur every Wednesday at 1.00 p.m. There is no admission but bookings are required, tel: (02) 6933 2434.

Winery Tours are conducted by Phoenix Limousines, tel: (02) 6921 9585.

 

Murrumbidgee River Cruises
One hour cruises of the river operate Thursday to Monday at 2.00 p.m. Group discounts are available for 10 or more adults, tel: (02) 6925 8700.

 

RAAF Museum
10 km east of Wagga, at Forest Hill, is the RAAF base, which houses 1600 personnel. There are 5 planes at the main entrance. They are a Canberra Bomber, a Mark 8 Meteor fighter from the Korean War, A Winjeel training aircraft, a Sabre and Mirage fighters. The base museum focuses on the history of the RAAF in Wagga and the Riverina. It is located just outside the main gates in the old Guard House, the first building erected on the base. Entry is free but it is currently closed for renovations (August 2004). Ring (02) 6937 4111 for more details.

 

Activities
Sport and entertainment can also be had at Crazy Golf at 21 Blake St (02 6925 8887), Wiradjuri Golf Centre in Narrung St (02 6921 3033), Forum 6 Cinema at 77 Trail St (02 6921 6863), Vertical Reality Indoor Rock Climbing at 377 Edward St (02 6925 0069), Wagga Wagga Country Golf Club (02 6922 6444), Wagga Wagga City Club (02 6931 2292) and Oasis Regional Aquatic Centre (02 6937 3737).

 

Other Attractions and Events
The National Horse Festival, the Australian Veterans Games and the Sydney Traveling Film Festival are held each year in March, the Country Energy Peo-Am, Gold Cup Racing Carnival and Wagga Stamp and Coin Fair in May, the Veteran and Vintage Motor Rally in June, the Re-generate Youth Festival in July, the Junee to wagga Marathon in August, the Wagga Jazz Festival, Wagga Psychic Expo and Henty Machinery Field days in September, and the Uranquinty Folk Festival, Wagga Agricultural Show, Wagga Picnic Races and Sunrise Rotary Garden and Leisure Festival in October.

 

 

 

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Wagga Wagga