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This howling wilderness. I am the first
white man to see it
and I think
I will undoubtedly be the last
- John Oxley, Surveyor-General of NSW, 1817 giving his
impressions
of the land on which Griffith now stands.
The
Murrumbidgee is a region traversed by the Murrumbidgee River
and contains the Murrumbidgee and other irrigation areas,
with Wagga Wagga being the major urban centre in the region.
With a river that flows for 1,600 km, the Murrumbidgee also
include two major water storages, Burrinjuck Dam and
Blowering Dam on the Tumut River. The Snowy Scheme dams also
store water and provide flows into the Murrumbidgee system
via Blowering Dam and the Tumut River. With over 10,000 km
of irrigation channels in the region, it is not surprising
that the Murrumbidgee produces over 16 per cent of the total
agricultural production of Australia. Lake George,
Australia's largest freshwater lake, is located near
Canberra.
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