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Riverina
The farming region of Riverina is hardly visited by
foreighn tourist. There are no major tourist attractions, although the
landscape is gentle. |
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rolling plains of southwestern New South Wales, spreading west from the
Great Dividing Range, are bounded by two great rivers: the Murrumbidgee to
the north and the Murray to the south, the latter forming the border with
the state of Victoria. This area is known as the Riverina, a name
that conjures up a certain rural romance, suggesting a country Australia
little visited by tourists – except those en route to Melbourne along
the Hume Highway, which cuts a fume-filled swath through the
southwest. If you’re looking for work on the land, you’ve a reasonable
chance of finding it here.
The land the explorer John Oxley described as
“uninhabitable and useless to civilized man” began its transformation
to fertile fruit bowl when the ambitious Murrumbidgee Irrigation Scheme
was launched in 1907, and the area around Griffith
and Leeton now produces ninety percent of Australia’s rice, most
of its citrus fruits and twenty percent of its wine grapes. The capital of
the central Riverina is Wagga Wagga,
Australia’s largest inland city. Along the Upper Murray, the main towns
are on the Victorian side of the river, but you may drop into Albury
en route to Melbourne on the Hume, or into Wentworth as a day-trip
from Mildura or on the way to or from Broken Hill on the Silver City
Highway.
Hume Highway: Goulburn
to Albury |
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you want a quick route to Melbourne from Sydney, or vice versa, you’ll
inevitably end up on the rather tedious Hume Highway, which passes
through the Southern Highlands, the Riverina and across the Murray River.
Over the years the highway has been improved, but though this is one of
Australia’s main arteries between its two largest cities, it still
narrows to one lane either way in parts. Choked with trucks, particularly
at night, accidents are not infrequent, so keep your wits about you.
Following are the main stopping points along the way in New South Wales
and some suggestions for food, accommodation and breaks.
Murrumbidgee Irrigation Area |
| Irrigation
has transformed the area northwest of Albury, between the Lachlan and the
Murrumbidgee rivers, into a fertile valley full of orchards, vineyards and
rice paddies, cut through with irrigation canals. The Murrumbidgee
Irrigation Area (or MIA) extends over two thousand square
kilometres, a mostly flat and – from ground level at least –
featureless landscape that nonetheless is responsible for producing most
of Australia’s rice, approximately eighty percent of New South Wales’s
wine grapes, and sixty percent of its citrus fruits. The water for the
irrigation area is stored in Burrinjuck and Blowering dams and flows over
400km down the Murrumbidgee River to Berembed Weir, before being diverted
into the main canal, which is 155km long and feeds a network of 1450km of
supply canals.
For more regional
information on the Riverina Region, go
to: |
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Maps
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New South Wales |
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New South Wales