It is very difficult to write about Griffith briefly! What you see today is not how it was before 1945, but more about that in latter blogs.
Today it is a thriving city surrounded by successful farms, orchards and vineyards, all being irrigated by the complex irrigation system, the Murrumbidgee Irrigation Scheme, which now includes water from the Snowy River scheme.
Griffith is part of the productive Riverina area, and it includes the following: 150,000 tonnes of grain per year, mainly wheat and malt barley, largest poultry producer in Australia, 66 varieties of grapes, largest citrus growing in Australia, 95% of Australian prunes, 1 in every 4 glasses of wine is produced here, 20% of Australia's cotton, leading Australian producer of almonds and walnuts, McDonald's pickles are produced here, a quail farm produces 25,000 quails a week, almost all Australia's rice is produced here, and finally it is home of Aquna sustainable Murray cod. Wow!
It is also a multicultural city. Italian migrants settled here before and after 1945, and 60% of the population has Italian family connections. Other nationalities include Indian, Fijian, Filipino, Samoan, Pakistani, South African, Turkish, Afghani, Tongan, Taiwanese, Malaysian and Chinese. Seeing so many nationalities walking along the main street, makes me realise how much I miss the diversity of London. Most of these people are involved in some way with the food production businesses.
We drove to the lookout on the hill and viewed the city spread out in front of us. The city was proclaimed on the 14th August, 1916 so in terms of towns and cities in Australia, it is fairly new. It was named after Hon. Arthur Griffiths who was the New South Wales Minister for public works, 1910-1915. It was designed by Walter Burley Griffith, the Chicago architect who designed Canberra. The names are co-incidental! Griffith is designed in a radial pattern, the same as Canberra, and like Canberra it is a nightmare to navigate around as nothing runs straight.
A photograph of one of the suburbs.
The photograph below was not the home of 'The Hermit', Valerio Ricetti. His cave was further along a rocky track, but it was similar to this one. Valerio arrived in Griffith in 1929, after living in Broken Hill for 15 years. He was disillusioned with life in Australia, after being robbed and lied to, and made his home in a cave here. He constructed paths, gardens and galleries which were much photographed, but during World War II he was interned as an alien of enemy origin. When he returned to Griffith his cave had been wrecked as had his garden. He returned to Italy after the war and died soon afterwards. No doubt a broken man.
We drank reasonable coffee at the cafe and I ate a very sugary and sticky cake.
Walter opened the cupboard door, and my coffee cup and wine glass fell out and broke. Luckily the local charity shop was open and he was able to purchase another cup and glass, otherwise no coffee or wine for me. A tragedy for sure.
Hillston is a town on the banks of the Lachlan River, which like many outback Australian rivers appear to flow upside down. Muddy bottomed rivers!
Now why are the trees dead on the other side of the bank?
A couple of colourful emu statues.
Back to the camping ground in Cobar. The huge area at the back which I think is intended to be used for tents and campers. However, it is also fantastic for dogs to have a good run.
Piper returning the ball to me.
And finally, the temperature here at night has dropped to minus 2 degrees. But luckily we have finally learnt how to use the heater on the airconditioner. The instruction book was so unclear. But Walter sorted it out yesterday so now we are really cosy as we have two heaters, the one on the roof and our little portable one.
So cosy!
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