Place Name Spelling

The Age, Queanbeyan

12 September 1905

Sir,

One of your correspondents writing under the non-de-pume of "Gum Leaf," makes mention of Coolamon Plains.

The proper native name, however, is Cullalomin Downs.

There is a place named Coolamon in Riverina and this place has probably also come to have the name mispronounced.

I also think your correspondent is mistaken in saying that the Murrumbidgee has its source on the Long Plain which is separated from Cullalomin by a stiff rise and the waters from this flow towards Yarrangobilly to the Tumut (Doomut-th).

The waters from these downs flow through a boggy, subterranean, limestone course to the Coodradigbee and perhaps the Cotter rivers.

At the south east end of Cullalomin Downs are Gurrengramberar and Nungar, near one of which places the Murrumbidgee forms a formidable and rocky course called the Gulf.

In the late thirties the late Dr. Gibson of Tiranna, Goulburn, had his stock yards near the Gulf and his manager, the late Mr Ward, thought he had found an excellent site for a cattle station, but denizens of the Monaro country will not be surprised to learn that he was driven out by the snow which, it is said, covered the men's huts.

In the late forties, the writer and the late Sir Terence Murray were caught in the snow on Long Plains and experienced great difficulty in reaching Berrindaballa.

If I am wrong as to the source of the upper Murrumbidgee being Cullalomin only, I shall be pleased to be corrected.

I was at Yarrangobilly on the 17th March 1839 and down Talbingo to the Doomut-th.

Queanbeyan should be spelt and pronounced Cuumbean.

Yours &o., Woollahra. S. M. Mowle.