Riverina

The Riverina occupies a vast flood plain between the Great Dividing Range and the Murray, drained by the Murrumbidgee and its tributaries through country that grows more food per hectare than almost anywhere in Australia. This is rice country, rice country, citrus country, grape country — all of it under the wide, flat sky that the Riverina delivers in all directions.

Wagga Wagga is the region's centre and the largest inland city in NSW — a genuinely pleasant, well-provisioned city with a serious food and coffee culture, a good regional museum, the remarkable free National Art Glass Collection, and a botanic garden that extends along the Murrumbidgee flood plain. The inland rivers here are wide, clear in summer and excellent for canoeing and swimming from the accessible river beaches.

The junction of the Murrumbidgee and Murray Rivers at Balranald is one of those remote places that rewards the long drive with a kind of quiet that urban life has made unfamiliar. River red gums spread over river flats, the water is cold from alpine snowmelt, and the night sky — two hundred kilometres from any major city — is dense with stars. Willandra National Park to the west is remarkable and almost entirely unvisited, offering some of the most peaceful remote camping in NSW.