Jerilderie then Lake Wyangans

 THE KIDMAN WAY

Our plan is to travel the Kidman Way which is named after Australia’s largest station property owner, Sir Sydney Kidman. The road is all sealed & stretches from Jerilderie in the south to Baringun just shy of the Queensland/New South Wales border. It is a good insight into outback Australia with many interesting towns along the way. We then intend to check out Queensland’s central sandstone belt before hitting the east coast & returning home.

Our first stop was Jerilderie – a town in the southern Riverina region of New South Wales It can be found along the Newell Highway 674 kilometres south-west of Sydney and 45 kilometres north of the Victorian state border. This is also where Ned Kelly and his Gang robbed the ‘Jerilderie Bank.

Jerilderie is an irrigated farming centre, the area around Jerilderie produces a quarter of all tomatoes grown in Australia, as well as being a prime Merino Stud region. Additionally, Jerilderie has a diverse number of crops such as rice, wheat, canola, mung and soy beans, onions, liquorice, grapes and a number of cattle farms.

The Jerilderie Shire Council (and the Shire of Taroom in the central Queensland highlands) have rare windmills of unusual design. Both are situated on National Route 39, which provides a straight run from Victoria to the Queensland tropical coast.

 

The windmill was produced by the Steel Wings Company between 1907 and 1911 with only six models ever erected. The windmills comprise a steel frame and fan which turns to the wind between a bearing at the bottom and a swivel at the top, all supported by guy wires. The fully restored windmills, the only two known working examples in the world, are unique because their fan is contained and spins within the fully pivoting frame.

NED KELLY

Jerilderie was visited by Ned and his gang in 1879. The outlaws captured the town’s two policemen and imprisoned them in their own cell before dressing in the police uniforms. They then told the locals that they were reinforcements from Sydney sent to protect them from the notorious Kelly Gang.

Later the gang held up the local Bank. More than two thousand pounds were stolen before Kelly and his gang walked to the Telegraph Office and chopped down the telegraph poles. He and his gang held 30 people hostage overnight in the Royal Mail Hotel where Ned Kelly wrote the famous Jerilderie Letter which documents Kelly’s passionate pleas of innocence and desires for justice for both his family and the poor Irish settlers of Victoria’s north-east. It has also been described as the Ned Kelly ‘manifesto’ and remains the only source providing a direct link between the Kelly Gang and the actions they are accused of.

Prior to European settlement, the Jerilderie region was inhabited by the Jeithi Aborigines and the name ‘Jerilderie’ is thought to derive from their word for ‘reedy place’.

The Jerilderie district originated with the gazettal of the final licenses to landholders in the 1870s. Before this time annual licenses were issued. The pioneers of that time established cattle stations and it was not until the 1860s that sheep were found better suited to the area.

The birth of the town of Jerilderie itself is traced to the establishment of a house and store by John Carractacus Powell in 1854. He was apparently encouraged and assisted by the Kennedy Family to establish his home and business in what is known today as Powell Street, Jerilderie. The Kennedy family were the pioneers who first took up the property known as Mary’s Creek Run, the station which surrounded the site of the town of Jerilderie. After John Powell first built, in 1859 William Davidson arrived in Jerilderie and he chose the site of the official village to settle on, being the “Cape” region. He had evidently noted the survey of 1852. William Davidson then constructed a brick kiln, the bricks from which he erected a house, hotel and blacksmith shop.

Thus Jerilderie had two establishments, about three kilometres apart, and the business rivalry was keen in each endeavour to capture trade from the travelling public.

Whilst the rivalry continued between Powell and Davidson, a Mr. Cadell settled at a site opposite the existing Police Station and erected a store to compete with Powell and Davidson.

The Post Office opened on 1 October 1862 but was spelt Jereelderie until 1890.

COLEAMBALLY

A further 56 km up the Kidman Way finds us at the newest town in N.S.W. which was established in 1968 & accommodates the surrounding Murrumbidgee Irrigation Area.

DARLINGTON POINT

Another 32 km and we were at this historic port and crossing which was established in 1864. The mighty Murrumbidgee River is a haven for animal and birdlife as well as native fauna.

GRIFFITH

32 km brings us to a town with a very Italian heritage. Griffith is a major regional centre known for food, wine, gardens and multiculturalism. I will have to steer clear of all the wineries, otherwise, Cheryl will not want to go further north (lol). We found another great free camp!