Cooma, New South Wales, Australia

🇦🇺 Cooma is a town in the south of New South Wales, Australia. It is located 114 km (71 mi) south of the national capital, Canberra, via the Monaro Highway. It is also on the Snowy Mountains Highway, connecting Bega with the Riverina.

Cooma is the main town of the Monaro region. It is 800 metres (2,620 ft) above sea level. The name could have derived from an Aboriginal word Coombah, meaning 'big lake' or 'open country'.

Cooma is 5 km (3 mi) south of the banks of the Murrumbidgee River, a main tributary of the Murray–Darling basin. Cooma sources its water from the river.

History The area now known as Cooma lies on the traditional lands of the Ngarigo people.

Cooma was explored by Captain J. M. Currie in 1823. It was first surveyed in 1840, and was gazetted in 1849. Cooma was proclaimed a municipality in 1879.

The railway from Sydney was extended from Royalla to Cooma in 1889 under the supervision of John Whitton. The line was closed to rail passenger traffic in 1989. The estimated population of Cooma was 47 in 1851 and it grew to 2330 (1911), 1969 (1933), 2249 (1947), 9103 (1966), 7353 (1976) and 7978 (1981).

In 1949, the town became the headquarters of the Snowy Mountains Scheme and grew rapidly. Those working on the Snowy Scheme depended on the railway and during construction of the scheme, the railways were one of the largest employers in the region. In 1959 the tenth anniversary of the scheme was celebrated with the erection of an avenue of flags representing the 27 nationalities of people working on the scheme.

Cooma has developed a growing tourism industry as it became the main rest stop for many travellers heading to the NSW snow fields during the winter months. As a result, the town nicknamed itself the 'Gateway to the Snowy Mountains'.

The Aviation Pioneers' Memorial at Cooma contains artifacts recovered from the Avro 618 Ten aircraft Southern Cloud, which crashed on 21 March 1931 in the Toolong range of the Australian Alps. The wreck was not found until 26 October 1958.

Heritage Cooma has a number of heritage-listed sites, including: • Bradley Street: Cooma railway station • 59–61 Lambie Street: Royal Hotel • Sharp Street: Rock Bolting Development Site

Population • Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people made up 3.2% of the population. • 76.5% of people were born in Australia. The next most common country of birth was England at 2.6%. • 82.5% of people spoke only English at home. • The most common responses for religion were Catholic 26.2%, No Religion 26.1% and Anglican 18.7%.

Education Government schools include Monaro High School, a high school that serves the town and seven of the neighbouring rural towns and villages including Peak View, Berridale, Jindabyne, Nimmitabel, Bredbo and Dalgety. The other two government schools support primary education and are Cooma Public School and Cooma North Public School, both providing education for students in kindergarten to year 6.

The Roman Catholic school is called St Patrick's Parish School and provides education from kindergarten to year 10. The Snowy Mountains Christian School, an independent Christian school provides education from kindergarten to year 10.

Tertiary education is provided by TAFE NSW Illawarra Institute Cooma campus. Another Tertiary Education centre is the newly opened Cooma Universities Centre, which opened in 2014.

Mosaic Time Walk The Cooma–Monaro Time Walk in Centennial Park was a community project to mark the Bicentennial Year of 1988, from designs by Cooma College of TAFE and the Cooma–Monaro Historical Society.

Media: Press One newspaper operates in Cooma, The Monaro Post, which began in 2006, and is independently owned by Gail Eastaway, Tracy Frazer and Louise Platts.

Media: Radio • XLFM 96.1 FM (commercial) • Snow FM 97.7 FM (commercial) • Triple J 100.1 FM • ABC South-East 810 AM/1602 AM • Radio National 95.3 FM/100.9 FM • Classic FM 99.3 • Monaro FM 90.5 (community) • Racing Radio 96.9 FM • Vision Radio 88.0 FM (narrowcast, relay)

Note: transmitters for XLFM and Snow FM, as well as some ABC services, are in place throughout the Snowy Mountains.

Media: Television Cooma receives five free-to-air television networks including all the digital free-to-air channels relayed from Canberra, broadcast from the Telstra site Radio Hill translator in Cooma Common, off Polo Flat Road.

The stations are: • ABC • SBS • Prime7 • WIN • Southern Cross 10

Another transmitter for the Cooma and surrounding Monaro region is located at Mount Roberts approximately 30 km NNE of the town, broadcasting The Three Commercial Networks and the ABC services, but not SBS Television Services.

Transport Cooma is serviced by Cooma - Snowy Mountains Airport which is 15 km from the CBD. Cooma has a bus service connecting various areas of town three times a day run by Cooma Coaches. Snowliner Coaches also operate services. Cooma has a taxi service run by Cooma Radio Taxis.

NSW TrainLink operate road coach services from Canberra to Bombala and Eden. Cooma was served by the Cooma Mail until May 1986 and the Canberra Monaro Express until September 1988.

The Cooma Monaro Railway is a heritage railway using CPH railmotors built in the 1920s. Until operations were suspended in January 2014, the railway operated a weekend and public holiday service on an 18-kilometre section of the Bombala railway line north to Bunyan and Chakola.