The Long Paddock

02/11/2021

Events are back baby 💃🙌

Live music is back in Hay!
SAVE - THE - DATE


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14/10/2021

It’s the simple things…

13/10/2021

This 🙌

🌾 SO, WHAT IS THE LONG PADDOCK? 🌾

You've probably heard the name (maybe?) but what *actually* is the Long Paddock?

The Long Paddock is a network of stock routes that was developed in the 1800s to link stock breeding areas of inland NSW and QLD with Victoria.

Sheep and cattle would be walked along the stock route over days and weeks en route to markets in more populous areas 🐑🐄

Their livestock feeding on the pastures available on the public land and utilising the water sources strategically dotted along the route. 🌾

The Long Paddock is over 600km long, following the Cobb Hwy from Echuca/Moama on the Victorian border right up to Wilcannia in north-western NSW. 🛣

Did you know the Long Paddock is actually still in use today?

If you've taken a drive through the Hay Plains at any point you may have noticed a herd of cattle plodding along the road side (possibly wondering if they've escaped en mass 😳)?

Or, if you're really lucky, chanced upon a large group of unusually slow, four-legged pedestrians crossing the road (in absolutely no rush, whatsoever)?

If so, remain calm and relish in the opportunity to witness Australian agricultural history in action because these guys are using the Long Paddock 🤓

📸

09/05/2021

It’s PINK SKY SEASON 😊

07/05/2021

An incredible experience on Moama fir the next three weeks

They’re finally here! What a beautiful event for our community. 😍

Find out what else is happening in our communities here 👇

https://www.echucamoama.com/autumn



Photo credit

04/05/2021

Things we missed during 2020? LIVE MUSIC
Things we said we would do in 2021? LIVE MUSIC!!
It's back and it's in our own backyard. Grab your tickets to see ARIA award winning F***y Lumsden as she gives the rafters a shake at our beloved Booroorban Hall. Tickets on sale now. As the shoe brand says - just do it! 💯🤩🎶

Join ARIA + 8x Golden Guitar winner F***y Lumsden as she brings live music back to the bush and the halls after the year that was! Pack up the family, it's time to kick up your heels in an all-in-community-night-out! Commencing in 2012, F***y and her band have sold out shows and brought joy to over....

26/04/2021

Looking for a different way to explore your own backyard. We've got just the right road trip for you.

Visit NSW Visit Riverina NSW Visit Deni Echuca Moama Tourism ABC News ABC Riverina

31/01/2021

🚘🗺🚎 DETOUR WORTH TAKING 🚎🗺🚘
🦅🐟⛺️ YANGA NATIONAL PARK 👣🐏🦘

A detour off the Long Paddock is well worth it when National Parks like Yanga await.

Yanga National Park may be one of New South Wales’ newest parks, but the land itself boasts a long and significant history 🕰 From Aboriginal families to early explorers, shearers to rabbit trappers, fishermen to campers - people have been visiting the area for millennia.

Also known as Murrumbidgee Valley National Park, Yanga contains fascinating chapters of Australian history 🇦🇺

Camp by the banks of the Murrumbidgee like Burke and Wills once did⛺️; see over 150 species of birds in the park’s trees, skies and ecologically-important wetlands 🦅; acquaint yourself with bygone days at the old homestead 🐏, woolshed and countless Aboriginal sites, and enjoy a spot of fishing by the river🎣

👉 Though there’s plenty to see and do here, to get you started here’s 3 top spots to get you started:

🕰🌹 YANGA HOMESTEAD 🌹🕰
Here you can explore the Yanga Homestead and return to a time when Yanga was one of the Riverina’s most productive pastoral stations. The homestead was built around 1870, along with station outbuildings including stables, a gardener’s shed and station store. There are also rose gardens, restored and maintained by volunteers.

To see inside Yanga Homestead you'll need to pick up an audio guide and key from Yanga National Park Office, open Monday to Friday, 8.30am to 4.30pm.

⚓️🐏 YANGA WOOLSHED 🐏⚓️
Located along Murrumbidgee River, Yanga Woolshed was built in the late 1800s. Once the largest, most modern woolshed in the district, it housed 3,000 sheep and provided work for up to 40 shearers at a time.

Today, the woolshed is in Yanga National Park and you can wander through it on a self-guided tour, exploring its runs and pens, getting a feel for an authentic 19th century woolshed and a taste of Australian history.

You’ll also find an interpretive display to fill you in on the history of the area – once Yanga Sheep Station. Close your eyes and breathe in the smells of the past, imagining the sounds of docked paddle boats outside, waiting to transport their wool cargo down the river highway ⚓️

Don’t forget to check out the viewing platform for great river views; it was once where the old wharf stood. Pack lunch and visit the nearby Yanga Woolshed picnic area or stay overnight at Mamanga campground.

🦅👀 YANGA LAKE RED GUM HIDE 👀🦉
Attracting over 150 species of birds, Yanga Lake Red Gum bird hide offers some of the most spectacular birdwatching in NSW. Accessed along Yanga Lake walking track, it’s a great destination for families and nature-lovers alike.

Nestled amongst the river red gums and old man saltbush, the hide is a great spot to watch the pelicans and black swans as they forage for food and bring up their young in these majestic waterways. Spring and autumn are great times for birdwatching as the lakes fill with birds such as white-bellied sea eagles and great crested grebes.

👣🗺 🚘 For the low down on all things Yanga head to:
https://www.nationalparks.nsw.gov.au/visit-a-park/parks/yanga-national-park

27/01/2021

🤍🇦🇺🤍 THIS IS AUSTRALIA 🤍🇦🇺🤍
🦘 KANGAROOS, OUR ICONIC WILDLIFE 🦘

If there’s one animal that’s synonymous with Australia, it would have to be the iconic Kangaroo 🦘With an estimated 50 million of them across the country – twice the number of residents – kangaroos are not only indigenous to Australia but also one of our most easily spotted native animals 👀

Kangaroos can’t move backwards. It's for this reason that the Australian coat of arms features the emu and the kangaroo: two animals that can only move forwards as symbols of national progress 🇦🇺

Although the kangaroo has many brothers that look like it i.e. wallabies and wallaroos, the term kangaroo technically describes the largest of the bunch and includes the red kangaroo, the eastern grey kangaroo, the western grey kangaroo and the antilopine kangaroo. The red kangaroo is actually the largest surviving marsupial anywhere in the world 😲🌎🤯

It’s fair to say, no image of outback Australia is complete without a mob of kangaroos hopping across the horizon ☀️🦘🌖

History & myth busting: The word kangaroo derives from the Guugu Yimithirr word gangurru, referring to eastern grey kangaroos. This was the language of the people of the area near what’s now known as Cooktown and the first Australian Aboriginal language to be written down, way back in the 1770s.

The name was first recorded as "kanguru" on 12 July 1770 in an entry in the diary of Sir Joseph Banks; this occurred at the site of modern Cooktown, on the banks of the Endeavour River, where HMS Endeavour under the command of Lieutenant James Cook was beached for almost seven weeks to repair damage sustained on the Great Barrier Reef 🐡⚓️🐠

A common myth about the kangaroo's English name is that it was a Guugu Yimithirr phrase for "I don't know" or "I don't understand". According to this legend, Cook and Banks were exploring the area when they happened upon the animal. They asked a nearby local what the creatures were called. The local responded "kangaroo", said to mean "I don't know/understand", which Cook then took to be the name of the creature.

Anthropologist Walter Roth was trying to correct this legend as far back as in 1898, but few took note until 1972 when linguist John B. Haviland in his research with the Guugu Yimithirr people was able to fully confirm the proper etymology 🕵🏻‍♂️📝

Out here on the Long Paddock, between Echuca/Moama and all the way out west to Wilcannia, you’ll see these wonderful creatures frequently and in their natural habitat.

Seeing a Kangaroo in the wild is certainly a true Australian experience and one you’re never too old to appreciate 🦘🙏🏼🇦🇺 Just remember to have your camera or phone charged, as the landscape backdrops where you’ll spot our curious roo’s, make for epic photo opportunities! 📸

💥Note: these bouncing herbivores are social creatures who typically lay low in the heat of the day and emerge at dawn and dusk to graze. Kangaroos are famous for their means of locomotion: hopping! What’s more, they can reach speeds of 60kph, clearing more than 8m with a single hop. Keeping this in mind and the fact they are often out and about at dawn and dusk, be sure to keep your eyes peeled on the road 👀🚘🌞

24/01/2021

🐂👻🤠 THE HAUNTED PLAINS 🤠👻🐂
🐴 HEADLESS HORSEMAN OF THE BLACK SWAMP🐴

“When the lands were wide and the fences few, uneasy was the stockman when the sun was down and his thousand charges scattered for miles around the camp fire... He would remember the story they were telling around Bourke... that the Headless Horseman was again haunting the plains at the Black Swamp near the border...”

Saltbush plains stretch as far as the eye can see and it’s here at Black Swamp near Booroorban, that the Cobb Highway takes one of its very few bends. Back in the day, Black Swamp hosted a coach changing station from 1859, when Edward Smith built a cottage as well on the low sandhill at the eastern edge of the swamp. Eventually he started the Black Swamp (Trotting Cob) Hotel which later closed in 1887.

It’s believed the name Black Swamp was derived from the blackish appearance of the water caused by peat formed from rotting vegetable matter. But then again, early maps show it named as “Black’s Swamp” because of a tribe of aborigines who usually camped there. However it’s name came to be, it’s certainly secondary to the legend that lives on a century later at this Swamp.

In the mid 19th-century, drovers told stories of a headless horseman who appeared suddenly at a campsite, mounted and wearing a cloak, who would spook the animals and cause a stampede 👻🐎🐂🐂🐂 It was said to be the ghost of a drover who died at the swamp.

The legend of the Headless Horseman arose when a drover named Doyle died at the Black Swamp in the early 1850s. The drovers would tell of having seen the ghost of Doyle while they were camped at the swamp 🤠⛺️👻 They said Doyle was riding about the camp at night on a short-legged horse – a trotting cob. Overlanders began to dread camping there, believing sight of the apparition spelled their own doom.

“He passed through the camp like a phantom, causing the cattle to rush and the dogs to shrink away ... terror would follow ... cattle, dogs, drovers all in a wild stampede.”
— J.E.P Bushby

The legend was perpetuated by a Moulamein butcher who, dressed as the headless ghost, would spook drover's mobs and siphon off cattle to trade through his shop 🥩 His technique? He would throw a cloak over a wooden frame on his shoulders, giving the appearance of the stump of a neck but having no head! 😳

He was wise to confine his “duffing” to small numbers to avoid attention and was assisted by publican “in-laws” placed strategically throughout the area. He continued his game of dress-up & duffing until fencing-in of the runs made illicit movement of stock too difficult.

One Cobb & Co. driver claimed to have carried the wounded cattle thief to hospital only to see the same thief's headless body riding a horse a few nights later.

Myth or not, it’s worth telling the story because it has just the right amount of mystery and good old fashioned Australia “we’ll pull your leg if we can get away with it” mischief 😆

The Headless Horseman sculpture, created in metal by sculptor Geoff Hocking, is between Wanganella and Boorooban and forms part of 11 major art works and 52 information points along the touring route.

Today we couldn’t say for sure if the drovers who traverse this section of the route wake up weary after a restless night worrying the Horseman would appear. Some might put stock in the legend, whilst others aren’t believers 🙅🏻‍♂️

What we can say though is that the interpretation panels and sculptures that commemorate the legend of the "Headless Horseman", make for awesome photo opportunities 😃🙌📸

☀️ Hot tip: Sunset is particularly epic! ☀️

💡 More info on The Long Paddock sculptures: http://www.thelongpaddock.com.au/touring-route/artback-sculptures-of-the-long-paddock/

🚗 Keen to explore Booroorban & Surrounds? Visit https://www.visitthemurray.com.au/places-to-go/central/deni/things-to-do/villages/booroorban