Murrumbidgee Shire

We booked 2 nights in the town as the Spring Festival week was closing. As we drove down from Forbes the farming changed from dry arable and livestock to vineyards and fruit farms. In the 1920s the state goernment built extensive irrigation schemes and a large Italian community were some of the first to start farming in the area. Wine is a major output, Yellowtail wines have their huge estate here along side others.
Oranges are grown in abundance and celebrated on the High Street every spring during Festival week.
The town is clearly very prosperous and was planned out by the same American architect who designed Canberra.
We enjoyed a walk along the heritage trail on the hill above the town. Here a young Italian immigrant lived for over 20 years as a hermit in the escarpment, making for himself rocky gardens, covered accommodation etc in the hillside. Valeri Ricetti was his name who became a sometime part of the community. We presume he came from the deep south of Italy where we saw caves which were occupied in Matera until very recently.
The town has a fighter bomber from WW2 mounted on a pole next to the Information Centre on the high street, presumably a permanent fixture, unlike the orange sculptures which are displayed for 10 days during the spring festival. This is what you do when you have 100000 spare oranges and grapefruit available each year.Read more