Day 122 Griffith

Today we drove to Griffith, and back into New South Wales. We stopped at Euston a small town on the banks of the Murray River. The courthouse was built in the early 1850s and served as a key judicial and police outpost alongside a local police station and whipping post during the 1860s trading boom.






We stopped to see Yanga Homestead from a time when Yanga was one of the Riverina's most productive pastoral stations. Located in Yanga National Park, the homestead was built around 1870, along with station outbuildings including stables, a gardener's shed and station store. There are also rose gardens, restored and maintained by volunteers. The homestead's unique Murray pine drop log' design. Rather than using standard vertical framing or the interlocking corner notches seen in American log cabins, the drop log system functions like a slot-and-groove system. The Frame has vertical wooden posts which were erected with deep grooves or "slots" carved down their sides. The Logs made of horizontal Murray pine (Callitris glaucophylla, also known as White Cypress) were cut to size and dropped horizontally into the slots between the posts to form the solid walls. This was a highly efficient, cheap, and fast method of construction. It required very little hardware (like expensive imported nails) and utilized locally abundant timber.

Yanga Lake viewing deck gave lovely views of the lake.










We next arrived in Hay for lunch it features grand 19th-century architecture and heritage public buildings linked to its past as a Murrumbidgee River port and Cobb & Co regional headquarters.

The post office designed by Colonial Architect James Barnet and completed in 1881, this prominent civic building features striking multiple arches and decorative cast-iron railing along its second-storey balcony.



The Council Office erected in 1877, this stout building with prominent verandah posts originally served as the town's second courthouse before transitioning to municipal administrative use.

Mrs McGrath Returns Sculpture outside the Council offices a two-metre-tall metal sculpture depicting historical local figure Susan McGrath alongside three pet sheep. It includes playful details like a sheep wearing a hat and another reading a book. Susan McGrath, who worked as a bridge assistant and famously used a pet leader sheep to guide difficult mobs of Merino sheep across the Murrumbidgee River bridge during the 1920s and 1930s




The Australian Joint Stock Bank was the first Bank in Hay established in the 1860s/1870s. The prominent stuccoed brick building was designed by architect Benjamin Backhouse and constructed by Witcombe Bros, with building starting in 1877 and occupancy beginning in 1878. The institution transitioned into the Australian Bank of Commerce in 1910, and later became part of Westpac Banking Corporation in 1982.



The Foodworks Building incorporates older structures including the former ANZ Bank site and the Fayle building. The exterior side wall (along Bank Street) features a prominent mural detailing the history of the town of Hay.





Railway Station is a heritage-listed grand Victorian Free Classical style building. It opened on July 4, 1882, as the terminus of the branch line from Junee via Narrandera. Built by the New South Wales Government to capture the lucrative Riverina wool trade and counter trade competition from Victoria. Designed as a Type 5 first-class brick building featuring a distinctive, rare scalloped platform verandah unique to NSW railway stations. It is noted as the only first-class station in the state not built on a main line or junction.



The Railway Station features an original 1882 station master’s residence/cottage located right at the front of the station complex. The former station master's residence is a single-storey brick cottage featuring an iron hipped roof and a characteristic bullnose verandah. While the railway line is cut off and no longer active for passenger trains, the precinct has been preserved l and houses community groups, local radio, arts initiatives, and the Prisoner of War & Internment Camp (Dunera Boys) Interpretive Centre.



The Hay Water Tower Art features a striking World War II mural painted across two town water tanks rather than traditional grain silos. Completed by Matt Adnate and Bill Campbell in 2020. Titled "The Town That Went to War," the mural honours the local servicemen and women from the Riverina region who left the Hay Plains to serve overseas.

Lt. Lorna Margaret Whyte (Australian Army Nursing Service nurse, Rabaul)
Pte. Victor George Murray (Ngemba man, 2/4th Field Company Engineer/mechanic)
Cpl. Clifford Leslie Farlow (2/19th Battalion)
Pte. William 'George' Cannon (2/1st Battalion)
Pte. Norman Charles Flack (2/19th Battalion, Ordnance Corps)