Numeralla is a village in Snowy Monaro Region of New South Wales, Australia. In 2016, the population of the village and its surrounding area was 258. The village was known as Umaralla until 1972.

Location

It is 400 km from Sydney and 23km east of

Cooma Cooma is a town in the south of New South Wales, Australia. It is located south of the national capital, Canberra, via the Monaro Highway. It is also on the Snowy Mountains Highway, connecting Bega with the Riverina. At the , Cooma had a po ...

, the nearest regional town. It is near the confluence of

Numeralla River The Numeralla River, a perennial river that is part of the Murrumbidgee catchment within the Murray–Darling basin, is located in the Monaro region of New South Wales, Australia. The name of the river is claimed to derive from an Aboriginal ...

(until 1972 known as the Umaralla River) and

Big Badja River The Big Badja River, a perennial river of the Murrumbidgee catchment within the Murray–Darling basin, is located in the Monaro region of New South Wales, Australia. The river rises on the western slopes of the Great Dividing Range, north–e ...

. It lies on the road from Cooma to Braidwood.

History

Aboriginal and early settler history

The area later known as Numeralla lies within the traditional lands of the

Ngarigo The Ngarigo People (also spelt Garego, Ngarego, Ngarago, Ngaragu, Ngarigu, Ngarrugu or Ngarroogoo) are Aboriginal Australian people of southeast New South Wales, whose traditional lands also extend around the present border with Victoria. Langu ...

people. Colonial settlers came into the district in the 1840s. By 1850, the area was part of a large squatter's run called 'Numarella'. Other settlers came as gold miners in the 1850s and 1860s. It was reported in 1892 that there were just two of the 'Monaro tribe' (Ngarigo) remaining in the Monaro region. It is now believed some Ngarigo people survived colonisation by leaving the district, some merging with clans around Bega and Bermagui.

Gold mining

Alluvial gold was found on the Numeralla River in 1858 and on the Big Badja river in 1861. In 1866, diggings extended for three miles along the Numeralla River. By 1868, only a few miners remained. Alluvial mining returned to the area between 1892 and 1897, using

hydraulic mining Hydraulic mining is a form of mining that uses high-pressure jets of water to dislodge rock material or move sediment.Paul W. Thrush, ''A Dictionary of Mining, Mineral, and Related Terms'', US Bureau of Mines, 1968, p.560. In the placer mining of ...

Village

The site for a village was gazetted on 16 July 1863. It was proclaimed a village for a second time, in 1885, as a consequence of the Crown Lands Act 1884. Originally named Umaralla, it was renamed Numeralla in 1972. Numeralla has had a post office since 1863. The village's public school, which opened in 1877, only closed at the end of 2015. After mining, the rich river flats were used for some years to grow potatoes for the Monaro and Canberra markets.

Present day

Numeralla is a peaceful village with limited facilities. The village has a public hall (Numeralla Digger's Memorial Hall, also known as Numeralla Hall), a Catholic church (All Saint's), an Anglican church (St John's) and a cemetery to the north of the village.

Folk festival

The Numeralla Folk Festival usually takes place on the weekend closest to

Australia Day Australia Day is the official national day of Australia. Observed annually on 26 January, it marks the 1788 landing of the First Fleet at Sydney Cove and raising of the Union Flag by Arthur Phillip following days of exploration of Port Ja ...

each year. It is a free event. The last festival was in 2019, as it was cancelled in 2020–22 due to the

Black Summer bushfires Black is a color which results from the absence or complete Absorption (electromagnetic radiation), absorption of visible spectrum, visible light. It is an achromatic color, without hue, like white and grey. It is often used symbolically or fi ...

and the

COVID-19 pandemic in New South Wales The COVID-19 pandemic in New South Wales is part of the ongoing worldwide pandemic of the coronavirus disease 2019 () caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (). The first confirmed case in New South Wales was identified on 1 ...

References

External links section

Numeralla and District Activities Inc. - The official website of Numeralla NSW Australia
{{Snowy Monaro Regional Council Towns in New South Wales Snowy Monaro Regional Council Populated places established in the 1840s Mining towns in New South Wales