“ Next day we paddled on to Oura, a little village, and bought eggs from a lady who lived in a mud house which was beautifully made in blocks and whitewashed with the result that it looked, and was, cool.
Waterway
to Wagga, p. 38, Run o’ waters
John Fitzgerald Fairfax, 1904 – 1951, of the Fairfax news
empire, visited Wagga Wagga on one of his car and canoe journeys through the
New South Wales countryside.
Starting at Gundagai, John and his travelling companion
Stephen, paddled down the Murrumbidgee, camping on the riverbanks by night, and
following the river to Wagga Wagga by day. Their progress along the river is
given in enough detail so that anyone interested in recreating the journey
could do so, as they passed by local stations and landmarks and eventually
ended up on Wagga beach.
There were many such trips around New South Wales, through
the Illawarra, along the coast to Kiama, Bateman’s Bay ( via the Clyde River)
and luckily for us Fairfax wrote about
his experiences which were then compiled into “Run o’ waters”, illustrated by
Cedric Emanuel. These essays were originally published in the Sydney Morning
Herald, Walkabout, and the Bega District News.
John Fairfax was a journalist in the Fairfax newspaper
business, served in the AIF during world war two, and after the war resigned
from the Fairfax board and retired from journalism. Fairfax committed suicide
in 1951, on his property at Gocup, near Tumut in New South Wales.
A copy of Run o' waters is available in the Wagga City Library local studies collection and can be read within the library. It's a great travel read and particularly interesting with so many local references.
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