Guide to Tocumwal New South Wales Australia

Tocumwal is a pleasant service centre and holiday town on the Murray River and is the last NSW town you will encounter if you are headed south along the Newell Highway. Situated on the northern bank of the Murray River amidst the flatlands of the Riverina Tocumwal is 694 km south-west of Sydney via the Hume, Sturt and Newell Highways and 112 m above sea-level. Its riverside location and attractive surrounds have made it something of a tourist centre.

The name of the town derives from ‘Tucumiva’, an Aboriginal term said to mean ‘deep hole’; a reference to what is now known as ‘The Blowhole’, a bogey some 25-metres deep at its lowest point which is said to be sacred to the Ulupna and Bangarang Aborigines. According to legend a giant Murray cod lived in the waterhole, and was prone to eat young children who fell in. Hence the giant fibreglass Murray cod in the town square at Tocumwal. Furthermore it is said that a young boy, who presumably escaped the clutches of the rapacious cod, was chased into the crevice and emerged in the Murray where the old bridge now stands. Both legends point to an underground stream connecting the two. Whether this is true or not water has been known to flow from the Blowhole in times of drought.