Sport & Recreation

FORE, LOVE AND A MURRAY COD

When our people aren’t planting vineyards, opening restaurants, building universities or producing plays, they’re out winning sporting medals.

While our farmers still ploughed fields with horses, Albury’s home grown AFL legend Hadyn Bunton was busy winning three Brownlow Medals playing with Fitzroy ( now the Brisbane Lions ) in the 1930s. Multiple Grand Slam winner and Triple Wimbledon Champion Margaret Court played her first games on local grass courts. Wodonga’s Scott MGrory won cycling gold at the Sydney Olympics. And while Emma George was honing her future world record breaking pole vaulting skills under the big top of the Flying Fruit Fly Circus, leading international basketball player Lauren Jackson was learning to shoot hoops at the Albury Sports Centre on her way home from school.

If there’s a sport played anywhere, then it’s played here. Residents and visitors, professionals and amateurs have access to some of the best sporting and recreational facilities in the country. In fact, they are rated so highly that over 300 international athletes chose to use Albury Wodonga as their training base for the 2000 Olympics.

The Five Par Excellence

Some cynics have accused golf of ruining a good walk in the country, but on our courses that’s impossible to do, no matter how badly you play.

Each of our five championship courses is in a beautiful natural setting, so that while your playing skills are being challenged all your other senses are being handsomely rewarded.

The Peter Thompson and Mike Wolveridge designed course at Thurgoona features the natural regional landscape with its gently rolling hills and towering gum trees. Its long and demanding 6372 metres, with a par 72, is our highest rated course.

The hundred-year-old Commercial Albury Golf Club’s fast greens and smartly groomed, undulating fairways meander through 5774 metres of beautiful countryside. Its par 71 has tested some of golf’s greatest players including Jack Nicklaus, Greg Norman and Bob Shearer.

Wrapping itself around the base of McFarlanes Hill, is the Wodonga Country Golf Club. Its par 72 is 6289 metres of beautifully manicured, undulating tree-lined golfing challenges. Wodonga has had recent upgrades to its bunkers throughout the course and boasts an extensive pro shop as well.

A few miles down stream is the nationally-acclaimed Howlong Golf Club. This course is a shorter par 70 (5679 metres) but its tight, tree-lined fairways will test your accuracy all the way back to the beautiful gardens at the clubhouse.

Golfing Nirvana on the Murray is one way to describe the 27 hole championship course at Corowa Golf Resort. A par 72 is your target for the Old Course which stretches 6037 metres with a varied challenge from the front 9 to the Old Course 18.

Tennis And More Tennis

If success was measured by the number of courts in relation to the population, we would be world champions. Here you’ll find more than 180 courts to play on. The Wodonga Tennis Centre alone has 31 grass courts, with full competition lighting, meeting facilities and change rooms. So if you fancy a set or two there’s no better place to lob.

Honey I Caught A Monster

Without doubt we have some of the best freshwater fishing available in Victoria and New South Wales. Being right in the middle of where our largest mountain range meets our biggest river, there is the perfect spot for every angler, from cold water streams to wide lakes and big valley rivers, all year round.

There are many beautiful, secluded tree-lined fishing spots all along the Murray, as well as popular angling spots at Mungabareena and Heywoods Bridge, where the famous Murray Cod, Yellowbelly and freshwater cray are regularly taken.

The Kiewa and Mitta Mitta Rivers also provide fine fishing opportunities for the delicious brown and rainbow trout.

However, if you’re looking to catch some bragging rights then cast your hopes into Lake Hume, the home of trophy fish in the region, where huge trout weighing up to 17 pounds have been caught.

The lake’s meandering shoreline, gentle waters and many inlets also provide lots of reward for families fishing on the shore and mates in tinnies. The best fishing spots can be found around Bowna Arm, Bethanga Bridge and Wymah where Murray Cod, redfin, carp, rainbow trout, golden perch, silver perch and freshwater crays are plentiful.

Ready, Aim, Fire.

Sporting shooters and archers are spoiled for choice here, with several state organised clubs providing every form of range shooting, and a countryside full of game hunting opportunities.

The Victorian Field and Game Club has a simulated field range where you can test and practise your game accuracy skills on clay birds and rabbits in a simulated game hunting environment.

The Black Range Black Powder Group are muzzle loading enthusiasts with their own range specifically designed for colonial and wild west guns and pistols.

The Country’s Largest Sporting Carnival

The Albury Wodonga Festival of Sport is the largest and one of the most prestigious sporting carnivals in the country. Held annually between February and March, the Festival presents a range of international, national and regional events featuring 28 sports that attract thousands of competitors from around the country.

Pedalling Through The Past

For those who prefer to move at a more leisurely pace, and smell the wild orchids, the surrounding countryside provides an easy, safe adventureland of colonial villages, native woodlands and beautiful scenery. There are well marked cycling and walking tracks leading out in all directions of Albury Wodonga, to take you through fields of glorious wild flowers, past rivers and streams, through wildlife habitats and along old railway lines that run back through the gold rush era. The newly-established High Country Rail Trail allows the enthusiast and family alike to relive the nostalgia of this rail line ( only closed in 1981 ) by riding between Wodonga and Tallangatta, following the Murray, crossing the Kiewa River, while circumnavigating the Lake Hume shoreline. Riders should consult Parklands Albury Wodonga for seasonal advice and information,  phone: (02) 6023 6714.

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