The further we went west from Wagga Wagga we drove the straighter roads got, until they became very long and flat plains, these plains are irrigated by the Murrumbidgee river as it runs from the Snowy mountains, passed our city of Canberra and joins with the Murray River. I have been told that Murrumbidgee means “big water” in the Wiradjuri language, Aboriginal language. Near home this is not a major river, but by this time it as become a pretty big system. The district we are running through is known as the Riverina District, an Agriculture district producing rice, wheat, maize as well as stone fruits, grapes, and citrus, an extremely important growing region.
The motor camp is about 500 yards east of the town along the Sturt highway. We arrived there in the late afternoon and became a part of a procession of campers and caravaners arriving. Hay is probably a good stopping point in the Adelaide – Sydney journey. We visited Hay, but it was shut, the information centre was kind of unique, in that it had a computerised information base and it was accessed by a touch keypad on the window of the centre. This system worked well. Hay is like most NSW inland towns with a mix of old elegant buildings, usually pubs, and a few new buildings. That night we looked at our maps and decided we would do a side trip to Broken Hill, this would mean that Wentworth would be tomorrow nights camping place.
