17 October 2012 - Wilks Park, Wagga Wagga, New South Wales

Still here in Wagga Wagga, enjoying the sun and this lovely city, says I who was so dismissive when we arrived yesterday. One’s attitude to a place is also tempered by the service and facilities so this free camp beside the river which we, together with about another twenty travellers, enjoyed last night and will surely again tonight, certainly sways one’s attitude.

We unhitched after breakfast, having decided that we would indeed stay on, and then headed up to the Museum of the Riverina on the hill after popping into the Sturt Mall to pick up a few necessities. We were too early, so sat in the cruiser out of the gentle cool breeze reading the newspaper until ten o’clock had come and gone.

The museum is excellent, and free but for the donation one may feel inclined to make. The exhibitions include a small but informative area about Wagga Wagga and the surrounding rural Riverina area, the famous Tichbourne case where a butcher from Wagga Wagga claimed to be the rightful heir of the Tichbourne estate in England way back in the latter part of the 19^th century and an area celebrating local sportspeople which included croquet and coach driving heroes, along with those who had excelled at more mundane sports such as cycling, touch rugby, tennis, and more familiar pursuits.

Alas for us, no sooner had we arrived than a small busload of oldies, obviously from a retirement home, also arrived escorted by their very own entertainment director, a women with a strident voice more unattractive that that of Julia Gillard. She wandered through with her visually and aurally impaired charges reading each interpretative panel as she went. It was impossible to concentrate on one’s own interpretation of the history with that racket going on. We wandered outside to view the excellent collection of farm machinery and other outdoorsy stuff which included a drover’s wagon and a chaff kitchen, the former a sort of support caravan and the latter, the catering wagon for the chaff cutters, both with excellent explanations. It was delightful to be out in the sunshine, and even better to be out of hearing of Mrs Foghorn, however the inevitable happened. She was still at it when we returned to complete our exploration of the museum. We gave up and came back to our camp, enjoying our picnic lunch in the caravan while listening to the second election debate between Barrack Obama and Mitt Romney. After that, we set off out again back to the museum. The oldies had all gone home for their lunch and afternoon nap, however museum workers were busy setting up a new exhibition, advice from all sides being given from particularly vocal types. It was not our day.

I did find out about the large buildings we had seen a little to the south west of Uranquinty; a gas processing plant which caused great consternation among the Uranquinty locals before its erection. I also learned that the air pilot training centre in the same locality was later used as a migrant reception centre in much the same way as that at Bonegilla.

I also asked about the wagga rugs of which there were several examples in exhibit drawers. These are basically patchwork rugs using sacks as backing sheets, something I am sure we did at sewing classes when I was at primary school. So why “wagga” rugs; what was so special about these made here? It seems that the sacks used for the flour and grain here at the Wagga Wagga mill (now standing unused beside the railway here) were of particularly good quality and sought after to make into these coverings which in turn used recycled clothing or bits and pieces and were in high demand all over the country as cheap warm “blankets”. The sacks had the distinctive Wagga lily printed on the bag, and so were clearly from this source. Mystery solved.

We drove the short distance to the Botanic Gardens and wandered about enjoying the azaleas and the extensive bird aviaries, along with the rest of the zoo which is home to donkeys, kangaroos, swap wallabies, emus, a shy wombat, and a few other creatures to humour the children who come to enjoy this, the playground, the ice-creams sold at the kiosk and the miniature railway when it is in operation. It was a pleasant place to be this afternoon and so we will head away tomorrow satisfied that we have seen Wagga Wagga.