Moving on from Gundagai we have taken the Old Wagga Road down the northern side of the Murrumbidgee River. The road seems to track the river better than following the Sturt Hwy west. It also affords us the opportunity of passing by Wantabadgery, about a third of the way to Wagga Wagga, a small village in a mixed sheep and cattle grazing district across the river floodplain and adjacent rolling highlands. Wantabadgery Station was where Captain Moonlight bailed up the entire station, about sixty people, the station owners had refused he and his gang work and shelter on the property. Anyway the police came and two of the gang were killed, the others escaped but were later arrested nearby, Moonlight was executed in Sydney. As mentioned in the previous blog he was returned to Gundagai in 1995 to be reburied near the unmarked graves of the other two.

Today, Wantabadgery is a blip on the map, the old General Store abandoned. A few houses line the roadway in the village. A couple of kilometres to the south of Wantabadgery the Murrumbidgee twists and turns on its way to Wagga Wagga. We took a side road here down to Sandy Beach, it is a large free camping area with a big grassy area alongside the river banks. Quite a few vans were in residence. It would be a great spot for an overnight stay on an extended trip.

We were tempted but had to move on to Wagga Wagga, arriving for a late lunch at the Big 4. It was located adjacent to some light industrial enterprises near the city CBD. The river was across a grassy paddock for unpowered camping. It was a bit of an urban jungle, but then we are in an urban jungle. Some 60,000 or so people live in the area.

Wagga Wagga, it is suggested that it should be pronounced ‘wagger wagger’ and not ‘woggo woggo’. Others just call it ‘Wagga’. Anyway, it seems to mean in Wiradjuri ‘a place where crows congregate’, although some say this is not right due to miss pronunciation by early European settlers of the words that mean ‘like to dance’ or ‘many dances’, but as Alf says in ‘Home and Away’ ….. “Stone the crows!” ….that will do on this subject for Allthego.

There is a long walk around the city levee bank, goes for 30 km or so. But, Allthego did a short 4 km section of it, some nice river scenes and he bumped into a ‘crowd of crows’ under some gum trees.

We are nicely set up here for a couple of days looking at the attractions.