Corowa, New South Wales: Travel guide and things to do

622 km south-west of Sydney via the Hume and Riverina Highways and 125 metres above sea-level Corowa is a typical Australian country town with a population of 5604. It lies at the centre of a prosperous district devoted mainly to the cultivation of wool, cereals, wine grapes and fat stock and it is supported by a huge piggery, an abbatoir, timber-milling and wine-making.

The land was once occupied by the Wiradjuri Aborigines whose language was the source of the word 'currawa', meaning either 'rocky river' or referring to the curra pine which was once found in abundance in the area and which furnished gum for the indigenous people's spears.

Charles Sturt explored the Murray River area in 1829-30 and in 1838, he led a droving party with 300 head of cattle through the district, en route to South Australia. It was also in 1838 that the party of John Foord set off from Yass with 1000 head of cattle, in search of fresh grazing land. Consequently, Foord and three business partners took up the 30 000-acre run known as 'Wahgunyah' (said to mean 'big camp') on the southern side of the river.

Foord's economic endeavours proved a success and were further enhanced by the opening up of the Victorian markets when river steamers appeared on the Murray in the early 1850s. At the same time gold was discovered at Beechworth and, later, at Rutherglen, bringing prospective diggers southwards over the river. Foord clearly saw an opportunity. He purchased a punt, bought a steamship, built a flour mill, subdivided his holdings and established the private township of Wahgunyah to serve as the supply nexus between the river trade and the goldfields.

The growing traffic of goods and people soon led to the accretion of a settlement on the northern bank. Foord purchased this land from the NSW government, had it surveyed and laid out in 1859 as North Wahgunyah, later renamed Corowa, although it was the southern settlement that initially prospered.

A private licensed toll bridge, made of local red gum, was erected across the Murray in 1862 in order to facilitate the passage of diggers south and of Riverina grain and timber to Foord's own mills. The first winery in the district was established as early as 1851. Dr Lindeman puchased a local vineyard in 1872 and established Corowa winery in 1877.

Gold was found in the vicinity in 1876 and the population increased rapidly from 189 in 1871 to 2272 in 1911, doubling between 1881 and 1891. The railway arrived from Culcairn in 1892.

Noted painter Tom Roberts twice visited Brockelsby station woolshed in 1889 to complete his famous 'Shearing the Rams' which hangs in the National Gallery of Victoria. However, Corowa's major claim to fame is its reputation as the 'birthplace of Federation'. Situated at the state border, traders were hit by tariffs at both ends of the bridge, frustrating the efforts of local businessmen to break into Victorian markets. Thus free trade was seen as an economic imperative that could best be achieved by agitation for a political settlement of border anomalies.

The Border Federation League was formed at Corowa and a major conference held at the Oddfellows Hall in Sanger St in 1893, to which both politicians and representatives of community groups from both states were invited. Locals were frustrated with red tape and lack of progress and called for 'Federation Now!". Summing up the sentiment Victorian premier, James Patterson received tumultuous applause for the following remarks:

When a man who comes here from Victoria is regarded as a foreigner, and a woman who goes to Wahgunyah is treated as a smuggler, liable to be stuck up by a policeman or customs officer, it is time some change was made.