Day 2 - Gundagai

8 April

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After a night of good rain, we wake up in the muddy grassfields. This morning i want to see a bit more of this town which is for me the home of Wagadhaany, a young Wiradyuri woman and main character of the historical novel i read last year and which remains close to my heart.

Historical context

Shortly after the arrival of the first fleet in Sydney`s cove in 1788, a British penal colony was established. The expansion of the colony brought great changes for the Wiradyuri people. Foreign diseases such as smallpox spread rapidly along the land with devastating consequences. Soon natural ressources available for all peoples for thousands of years, became possession of the white invaders.

Many settlers were ambitious and pushed further west than the colony and by 1820 the Wiradyuri people got their first 'visitors'. The intrusion was often tolerated at first, but as sacred sites were disturbed and ressources diminished, conflict arose. As this place provided the safest crossing of the Murrambidgee river which allowed to travel further South towards Port Stevens (Melbourne), the settlers chose to develop a town as of 1838. Gundagai was born.

As Native people became possession of the white settlers and were forced to work as servants in their houses, as drovers of their cattle.

The great flood of 1852

The biggest event of Gundagai till today is the great flood of 24 June 1852. The river reached a record height and swallowed the whole town, hundreds of people drowned.

Aborigenes who share centuries of knowledge about the Bila (the big river) flew to higher grounds as soon as the water started to rise. But the British settlers were too attached to their possesions and didn`t want to leave. Many drown.

In this dramatic events,  two aborignal men Yarri and Jaki Jaki risked their own lifes and spent the full night going back and forward to save white people from trees and rooftops. They saved 69 lives and are till today remembered for their resilience and unselfishness.

Unfortunately this heroic behaviour didn`t improve the future of the Wiradyuri people. Even Yarri`s own daughter, was taken away as possession of a white family. You can meet her in this beautiful epic novel.

Bila Yarrudhanggalangdhuray

Bila Yarrudhanggalangdhuray (River of Dreams) is an epic story of love, loss and belonging.

The first Australian novel to be released with a title in Wiradyuri language, Bila Yarrudhanggalangdhuray, which translates to River of Dreams, is a novel of historical fiction based on true events from Anita Heiss.

When the Murrumbidgee River breaks its banks in 1852 it devastates the fledgling town of Gundagai, built too close to the water’s edge despite the warnings of the local Wiradyuri tribe. Only two members of the Bradley family survive and in the wake of the flood, they decide to start again in Wagga Wagga. Wagadhaany (Wog-a-dine), who has been in the service of the Bradley’s for four years, assumes this means she can return to her family, especially when the eldest brother takes a new bride, but instead she is forced to leave her country, and her miyagan to accompany them.

While Bila Yarrudhanggalangdhuray explores the universal themes of family, loss, love and belonging, it does so from the unique viewpoint of Wagadhaany, a young Wiradyuri woman. With courage and resilience Wagadhaany endures the cruel separation from her family, and her country, and the dehumanising policies of British colonisation towards First Nations people, finding love with a young Aboriginal stockman, but always yearning to return home.

Old rail bridge over the Murrambidgee river

In Gundagai the local post man delivered his mail, mounted on a horse, untill 1985.