Tarcutta is a town in south-western

New South Wales New South Wales (commonly abbreviated as NSW) is a States and territories of Australia, state on the Eastern states of Australia, east coast of :Australia. It borders Queensland to the north, Victoria (state), Victoria to the south, and South ...

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising mainland Australia, the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and list of islands of Australia, numerous smaller isl ...

. The town is south-west of

Sydney Sydney is the capital city of the States and territories of Australia, state of New South Wales and the List of cities in Australia by population, most populous city in Australia. Located on Australia's east coast, the metropolis surrounds Syd ...

, east of the

Hume Highway The Hume Highway, including the sections now known as the Hume Freeway and the Hume Motorway, is one of Australia's major inter-city national highways, running for between Melbourne in the southwest and Sydney in the northeast. Upgrading of t ...

, It was proclaimed as a village on 28 October 1890. As of 2016, the town had a population of 446. It serves a local farming community relying for its prosperity mainly on sheep and cattle, and the interstate truckies who use the town as a halfway change-over point in the trade between the state capital cities of

and

Melbourne Melbourne ( , ; Boonwurrung language, Boonwurrung/ or ) is the List of Australian capital cities, capital and List of cities in Australia by population, most populous city of the States and territories of Australia, Australian state of Victori ...

History

The Tarcutta area was first visited by the European explorers Hume and Hovell as they passed through on their way from Sydney to Port Phillip in the Colony of Victoria. On 7 January 1825, near the present site of Tarcutta, they met a group of

Wiradjuri The Wiradjuri people (; ) are a group of Aboriginal Australian people from central New South Wales, united by common descent through kinship and shared traditions. They survived as skilled hunter-fisher-gatherers, in family groups or clans, a ...

aborigines. A decade after this first European contact around 1835–37, "Hambledon", a U-shaped slab house was built at Tarcutta. It was the first inn and post office to be built between Gundagai and Albury. Tarcutta Post Office opened on 1 January 1849. Among the earliest settlers was Thomas Hodges Mate. Mate was Tarcutta's earliest innkeeper, as well as its first post-master. Mate's daughter Annie claimed that 'tarcutta' was a

word meaning 'a food prepared by grinding grass seed'. Gold was mined in the area round Tarcutta, with limited success. By the 1880s Tarcutta locals were actively lobbying for a rail branch line from

Wagga Wagga Wagga Wagga (; informally called Wagga) is a major regional city in the Riverina region of New South Wales, Australia. Straddling the Murrumbidgee River, with an urban population of more than 57,003 as of 2021, it is an important agricultural, m ...

to Tumbarumba via Tarcutta, and in 1917 the Tumbarumba branch line became a reality. A section of the line sustained major flood damage in 1974, and the remainder of the line was closed in 1987. The Tarcutta bypass is west of the village, linking-up to the freeway to the north of the village and south of the village. It was opened to traffic on 15 November 2011.

Trucking industry

Tarcutta is situated halfway between Sydney and Melbourne on the

, and has long been popular in the trucking industry as a stopping and changeover point for drivers. The local park houses the National Truck Drivers' Memorial to the

truck A truck or lorry is a motor vehicle designed to transport freight, carry specialized payloads, or perform other utilitarian work. Trucks vary greatly in size, power, and configuration, but the vast majority feature body-on-frame construct ...

drivers who have died on the infamous local stretch of the Hume Highway, as well as around the country. The country singer,

Slim Dusty Slim Dusty, AO MBE (born David Gordon Kirkpatrick; 13 June 1927 – 19 September 2003) was an Australian country music singer-songwriter, guitarist and producer. He was an Australian cultural icon, referred to universally as Australia's Ki ...

, endorsed the memorial with a plaque. A commemorative event is held annually in October. The local café, which has sustained generations of truckies, has also been the source of inspiration for some of Australia's recent modern poets, Les Murray and Bruce Dawe. Murray wrote "The Burning Truck" while visiting the café in 1961 and Dawe immortalised the eatery in a couple of lines in his poem "Under Way". The poem reads in part: 'there would be days / banging open and shut like the wire door of the cafe in Tarcutta / where the flies sang at the windows'. There had been extensive political arguing since 1999 between Federal and State Governments over funding and where to site a proposed Tarcutta truck changeover facility. It was finally decided to place it off the main street and the project which was completed early 2007 was jointly funded at a cost of $6.5m. Truck drivers are required to stop for 30 minutes every five hours.

Heritage listings

Tarcutta has a number of heritage-listed sites, including: * Tarcutta Street:

Hambledon Homestead The Hambledon Homestead is a heritage-listed residence and former inn and store at Tarcutta Street, Tarcutta, in the City of Wagga Wagga local government area of New South Wales, Australia. It is also known as Tarcutta Station. It was added t ...

Other features

Tarcutta is also the birthplace of former Grand Slam champion tennis player

Tony Roche Anthony Dalton Roche Order of Australia, AO Order of the British Empire, MBE (born 17 May 1945) is an Australian former professional tennis player. A native of Tarcutta, Roche played junior tennis in the New South Wales regional city of Wagga ...

. A left-hander, Roche had a successful singles and double career and won 12 Grand Slam men's doubles tournaments. Located nearby is the Tarcutta Hills Reserve, owned and managed by

Bush Heritage Australia Bush Heritage Australia is a non-profit organisation with headquarters in Melbourne, Australia, that operates throughout Australia. It was previously known as the Australian Bush Heritage Fund. Its vision is: Healthy Country, Protected Forever. ...

. This reserve provides an important remnant of white box woodland with a relatively untouched grassy understory: a last refuge for the squirrel glider, endangered birds like the

swift parrot The swift parrot (''Lathamus discolor''), also known by the palawa kani name swift waylitja, is a species of broad-tailed parrot, found only in southeastern Australia. The species breeds in Tasmania during the summer and migrates north to south ...

, and as many as 11 other threatened wildlife species. The site is listed on the

Register of the National Estate The Register of the National Estate was a heritage register that listed natural and cultural heritage places in Australia that was closed in 2007. Phasing out began in 2003, when the Australian National Heritage List and the Commonwealth Heri ...

. In 1969, the Tarcutta Rugby League side became the Group 13 Rugby League premiers. Their superior season also saw them crowned as the

Clayton Cup The Clayton Cup is a trophy that was awarded by the New South Wales Country Rugby League, Country Rugby League to the NSW country rugby league team with the best overall record for that season. To be eligible, the team must win the highest level o ...

winners for 1969.

Climate

References

External links

Tarcutta Railway StationNational Truck Drivers' Memorial
{{authority control Towns in New South Wales Hume Highway Mining towns in New South Wales