We had both been to Cooma a few times before but not for many years. We had forgotten how lovely this country is with hills, and often the naturally treeless hills, framing the landscape in all directions. We were glad we had the second day there to enjoy what is a busy and vibrant town. We loved the Gaol Museum – what a fascinating place it is with a tour guided by a prisoner – and the rich heritage of the town. Loved it all and throughly recommend Cooma for a stop over.
We were in Cooma on 6 & 7 February 2019
Kerry’s snippets in fuchsia
Getting There
Ingleside (Sydney) > Cooma ~ 413kms
History
The Ngarigo First Nations tribe occupied the greater Monaro district for over 15,000 years. The specific lands of the Ngarigo covered some 16,000 km2 (6,200 sq mi), centering on the Monaro tableland. The northern limits lay around Queanbeyan. It took in the Bombala River area, and ran south to the vicinity of Delegateand eastwards to Nimmitabel. Their western reaches extended to the Great Dividing Range
There are currently three Declared Aboriginal Places in the Snowy Monaro LGA, gazetted under the National Parks and Wildlife Act 1974. These include Coolamatong (Lambie Gorge) in Cooma, Curiosity Rocks in Jindabyne, and the Delegate Aboriginal Reserve. Aboriginal places protect areas of land which have recognised values of significance to First Nations people. A place can have spiritual, natural resource usage, historical, social, educational or other type of significance
The town of Cooma, established in 1849, derives its name from the Aboriginal word coombah, variously meaning “lake,” “sandbank,” “one,” or “big swamp.” The town grew during the nearby Kiandra gold rush in 1860 and was proclaimed a municipality in 1879.
The closest railhead to Mount Kosciuszko – the railway from Sydney had been extended from Royalla to Cooma in 1889 – Cooma was selected in 1949 as the headquarters of the massive Snowy Mountains Hydro-Electric Scheme. This is a scheme to divert the coastal Snowy River west over the ranges, generating hydro-electricity and providing water supply to the inland Murray and Murrumbidgee Rivers, mostly for irrigation. During the peak years of construction, Cooma had a population of more than 10,000 with most of the workers coming from overseas.
With the completion of the Snowy Mountains project in 1972, the town experienced some reduction in growth. Its economy, however, was sustained by lumbering, steel fabrication, sheep and cattle farming. Increasingly tourism grew based on the Alpine region, including Kosciuszko National Park, and the dams, reservoirs, and aqueducts of the Snowy Mountains project.
Climatically, with the exception of the Snowy Mountains, the Monaro region is the coldest in mainland Australia.
Today, Cooma is the largest town in the Snowy Mountain region and consequently is seen as the northern gateway to the Snowy Mountains ski fields, the Hydro Electricity Scheme and the Kosciuszko National Park. In recent times tourism and the snowfields have ensured that it is more than just a rural service centre. It is the base for exploring the entire area and a prosperous tourist town. At the 2016 census, Cooma had a population of 6,742.
Day 1 – Wed 6 Feb – Ingleside to Cooma
Excited to be getting on the road again, we did not sleep well. We were also anxious to get an early start so as to avoid as much of the Sydney rush hour as we could. Kerry had one of her “can’t sleep” nights and got up at 3.45 am. I managed to hold on until 4.45am. We had everything pretty much packed so were out of the house by 5.30am, with the world still quite dark.
It was very dark at the van storage area – an open paddock. We had been up the last couple of days to get the fridge going again. We had no mains power – you don’t get much for $5 a day – and Mobi was on too much of slant to use the gas (the van has to be pretty level for that), so we had turned it onto the batteries a couple of days ago. The day before we had found that the batteries were flat and the fridge not very cold. This morning the batteries were dead flat again. This is a worry.
It felt strange to be hitching up again and we had to think twice about some things. We left the storage place at 6.08am – with all the usual double checks done even more carefully this time. The traffic was light as we went around Sydney on the M2 and M7 avoiding all the very long traffic jams we saw on the opposite side of the road. Not sure that the tolls were but they would have been excessive in the toll-capital of Australia.
It was a lovely day and it was great to have a 4 lane road virtually all the way to beyond Queanbeyan, around 325kms, with only 85km to go on a 2 lane road. Both The Cruiser and Mobi are much lighter now that we have discarded and sold so much stuff that we thought we may need on our 9 month trip last year, and the drive feels so much easier and controlled. We refuelled at Queanbeyan (fuel there was 10c/L cheaper than Cooma) and we were stunned to get a towing fuel economy of 18.04 L/100km over 336kms compared to the 21/24 we experienced last year on the loop. It will be interesting to see if this continues, or did we just have a strong wind at our rear.
It is a lovely drive from Queanbeyan to Cooma with rolling hills in all directions. It has been a long time since either of us have been down here and we had forgotten how pretty it is.
We noticed that Bredbo has gone very yuppie – a healing centre, cafes, bakery, gourmet food, etc. The old pub looked in good health. And the single petrol pump attached to the general store where I had stopped so many years ago on a motor bike has gone.
There is only 1 van park in Cooma and it was about a quarter full.. We got a site that we could drive through – a back to back site with the one behind us empty. Heaps of room. We were not quite like the well oiled machine with the setting up that we had become on the big trip around, but we got it there. The facilities were pretty good, clean and tidy, and we had strong Optus and Telstra. Cost was $36 per night.
When we opened the awning we were surprised to see that the top 400mm on the upper side – the bit exposed to the weather – was very dirty. There was no option but to clean the mess. As we had not really packed Mobi or the Cruiser the way we had them previously, soon we had nearly everything out to find what we needed. We managed to get the worst of the dirt off but will need to clean it better later.
We were shocked to find that the fridge was again not going when Kerry checked that. How come it had not operated on the drive down, we asked ourselves. Kerry went to the office and got the names of a good auto-electrical. We were in luck as they had just finished a job and could pop around to us straight away.
They checked a few things then explained that the van batteries cannot be used as a means of really cooling down a fridge – it is only a stop-gap measure. What we should have done was level the van and used the gas to get the fridge going – gas is the most efficient way to get a fridge cool and even that may take a couple of days.
But why had the fridge not operated on the drive down, we asked. So they went and tested the Andersen plug and found it was dead. They checked under the bonnet and found that 2 wires had become detached on a relay switch and once these were pushed back into place everything was ok. They also fixed the fan over the shower which had stopped working. All in all we were happy to pay the $60 charge. A little unfortunately, when they fixed the fan, they cross wired the lights and fan so when we turn on either switch, both come on…. oh well.
After that we drove into town, disappointed to find the tourist information office shut (shuts at 3:00pm). But the town is much larger than we remember and pretty busy. It has a good vibe to it. We got a few supplies and went back to the park. The lovely day we have had so far was changing to strong winds and very stormy skies. Rain looked certain, but did not fall. We cooked our BBQ under threatening skies. I miss our dishwasher already.
Day 2 – Thu 7 Feb – Cooma
We woke to a lovely clear but cool day – sunny, blue skies and a touch of crispness. It looked good for a day exploring Cooma.
A bit after 9 we were in the tourist information office. We came away with a map and an information sheet for the Lambie Town Walk. This walk was designed in 1985 and consists of 5 km of easy walking around Cooma, focussing on 24 buildings and places of historic interest in a circular route, starting at Centennial Park, We were also directed to the NSW Correctional Services Gaol Museum (part of the Lambie Walk), Snowy Mountains Hydro Discovery Centre, Nanny Goat lookout and Mount Gladstone Lookout. Not a bad way to fill a day.
We started the walk and were very quickly looking at the Solomon’s general store (now Mitre 10) and the Cooma Hotel (1862). The Cenotaph was erected in 1921.
Across the road is the Post Office (1872), a lovely Victorian Italianate building.
Next is the Courthouse built in 1877 in the Victorian Mannerist style, constructed out of granite gneiss. It is an elegant and impressive building at the top of a lawned hill. It was designed to impress the power of the law in a very lawless time. It is still in use as I discovered when I opened the door. I beat a hasty retreat. I got chatting to a police woman who was obviously “keeping an eye” on a bloke in ripped jeans, pacing up and down and looking nervous. I mentioned to her that he looked a bit agitated. She laughed and said “he thinks he’s going to come out wearing greens”.
Next door is It is the NSW Correctional Services Gaol Museum right next to the Cooma Gaol. The gaol was built in the 1870s. The museum covers the history of gaols in Australia and is a fascinating tour. We joined a tour group as they were finishing their tea/coffee, all for a gold coin donation. Our guide was one of the prisoners who does the guiding to earn additional income. He was a rotund short man, of Russian extraction who had only 4 weeks to go before release.
The museum contained all sorts of remnants of Gaol history, including flogging posts, stocks, hanging stands, etc. But it also contained lots on information on the first fleet and early settlement including a listing of every person on the first fleet and their status. A fleet of 11 ships transporting over 1400 people (780 convicts) left Portsmouth in May 1787 under Captain Phillip. It took over 8 months to travel the 15,000 miles to Botany Bay in January 1788. On that trip 48 convicts died, far fewer than on the second fleet which lost nearly a quarter of the convicts. One of the difficulties of the early settlement is that most of the prisoners were from London so had no agricultural or other non-urban background.
Then we moved on to how the thinking about prisoner management has evolved, to punishments and hangings, to the riots at the Bathurst Gaol which has led to the current approach under which prisoners have to work and earn income to supplement their basic pay of $35 a week, to the impacts of the privatisation of the prison system which has made everything a marketable commodity and dramatically downgraded the quality of the food and drink provided.
This story was told in great humour and we had many a good laugh on the way around. One concerned an application a man had written to apply for the job as an executioner. His reference was written on the application letter – “I think [name] would be a fine executioner – he would hang anybody”.
The important messages were never get yourself incarcerated to Goulburn or Melbourne Gaols, with Lithgow a close third. We were shocked to see that Lithgow Goal was designed in the shape of a coffin. Deliberately specified in the architectural brief.
After the tour we took a couple of photos of the current prison.
We then walked around to Lambie St. There are some remarkable homes along the street, many dating back to the middle 1850s.
A the end of the street we realised we were quite a way from the Church District. It was quite hot and we realised we may have been better driving around. We got back into town and decided to leave the churches until after lunch. But first we went to look at the Snowy Mountains Hydro Discovery Centre. We were a bit disappointed with this, not sure why, but perhaps having worked in water resources in the past, much of this was not new. There seemed to be many static displays without good interpretative material. It is very popular so maybe it was just us.
Next we went to Nanny Goat lookout with good views over the town and out to the treeless hills that are a natural feature of the Monaro district. There are hills in every direction.
The churches are fantastic. We first went to what used to be St Brigidine Catholic Convent (1884) which is now St Patricks High School – and what a stunning building this is.
St Patricks church (1873) is of the Ireland and Scotland style, rather plain. We liked its simplicity. Behind this is the Rustic/Gothic style presbytery build in 1878, a lovely building.
St Andrews Uniting church (1880) is smaller but a more appealing church.
Finally, St Pauls Anglican (1865) constructed from local granite and alpine ash. The spire was added in 1891. The Rectory next door is a gorgeous building. Somehow the Anglican church feels more welcoming.
There are also a couple of lovely homes in the area.
As we finished the tour, spots of large raindrops started to hit us. Dark storm clouds had been gathering for the last hour or so. We got back to Mobi just before the storms hit, and spent the next couple of hours watching torrential rain against a background of thunder. Thankfully, by about 5pm the rain eased, but the cloud mass remained threatening.
To see photos of our Cooma experience, click here