Griffith

In 1817 the explorer John Oxley described the area where Griffith is now situated as "uninhabitable and useless to civilised man". However in the late 19th century the government saw the potential for irrigation using the Murrumbidgee River, and in 1912 the water flowed and the Murrumbidgee Irrigation Area (or MIA) was born. Following World War I the population was given a boost as many farms were provided to soldier settlers, the memorial in Griffith's main street shows a World War I soldier with his hand on a plow handing over  a weapon to his son to go and fight in World War II.

 

The MIA is an abundant producer of citrus fruits and other fruit and vegetables. The area also produces 60% of NSW's grape harvest, with wineries specialising in botrytis style dessert wines. We did an interesting tour of a local mixed fruit farm, complete with tasting of the various farm products (although we cautiously restricted our intake of the prunes), and have been particularly impressed by the local mandarins bought at the Sunday market - much sweeter and juicier than the specimens normally obtained at a supermarket. We also did the rather dull heritage walk around town, and the rather more interesting local scenic drive.

 

Cocoparra National Park (John Oxley again: "abandoned...by every living creature that is capable of getting out of them" - not a man who could be described as a visionary) is only about 25km from Griffith and provided us with some good walks along creek beds and climbing up to exposed ridges with terrific views across the fertile and colourful fields of the MIA.

 

On the way back from Cocoparra NP we took a 50km detour to the town of Leeton, intending to visit the SunRice visitor centre, which supposedly had displays on the local rice industry. However, when we got there we found the centre had closed last year, it would have been nice if the Griffith tourist brochure had been updated and saved us the journey.