Gerogery, New South Wales

Gerogery is a town in the Riverina region of the Australian state of New South Wales. The town is in the Greater Hume Shire local government area and on the Main South railway line between Sydney and Melbourne, where it intersects with the Olympic Highway. Gerogery serves a rural farming community. Gerogery has a temperate climate. It lies close to the Great Yambla Range, with its striking Tabletop and Sugar Loaf ridge at the southern end.At the 2006 census, Gerogery had a population of 979.HistoryGerogery is on land originally inhabited by the Wiradjuri people. In English, the place name is pronounced Jer-rodge-er-rree; however, in Indigenous language it could have been a repeated "Jerro-Jerro ee". Local understanding is the place is named after the Wiradjuri word for magpies, plentiful in the locality.The arrival of European settlers meant that trees were extensively cleared and wheat planted, along with sheep and cattle grazed. Gerogery was at the eastern-most extent of nineteenth-century German immigration up the Murray River from South Australia.During the 1860s bushranger Mad Dan Morgan held up Sam Watson at Gerogery East. His hideout, "Morgan's Place" is located in the Yambla Range, and was used in between holdups around Tumbarumba, Kyeamba, and as a place to take refuge after the alleged killing of several police and a Wagga Wagga judge. (The bushranger was subject of a Dennis Hopper film Mad Dog Morgan.)