Gundagai is a town in New South Wales, Australia. Although a small town, Gundagai is a popular topic for writers and has become a representative icon of a typical Australian country town. Located along the Murrumbidgee River and Muniong, Honeysuckle, Kimo, Mooney Mooney, Murrumbidgee and Tumut mountain ranges, Gundagai is south-west of Sydney. Until 2016, Gundagai was the administrative centre of Gundagai Shire local government area. In the the population of Gundagai was 2,057. History The Gundagai area is part of the traditional lands of the Wiradjuri people, while there is a considerable folklore associated with Aboriginal cultural and spiritual beliefs in the area. The floodplains of the Murrumbidgee below the present town of Gundagai were a frequent meeting place of the Wiradjuri. The first moves to establish Gundagai as a township were in 1838 with plans for the new settlement of "Gundagae on the Murrumbidgee, about 54 miles beyond Yass ..." advertised for viewing at the office of the Surveyor-General in Sydney. Origin of name The name 'Gundagai' may derive from 'Gundagair', an 1838 pastoral run in the name of William Hutchinson to the immediate north of current day Gundagai. The Aboriginal word 'gair' was recorded at Yass in 1836 by the naturalist George Bennett and means 'bird', as in budgerigar or good bird. In that context 'Gundagai' means place of birds but that placename may refer to the area to the north of Gundagai not to Gundagai town. The word 'Gundagai' is also said to mean cut with a hand-axe behind the knee. Explorers and settlers Australian-born Hamilton Hume and British immigrant William Hovell passed through the region in November 1824 when they passed to the south, near the future site of Tumut. Hovell recorded seeing trees already marked by steel tommyhawks. On 25 September 2011, the Right Reverend Trevor Edwards, Vicar General of the Anglican Church and Assistant Bishop of the Diocese of Canberra and Goulburn, dressed in traditional white mid-nineteenth century garb, led the commemorative church service for the 150th anniversary of the laying of the foundation stone of St John's Anglican (formerly Church of England), Church, Gundagai. Bishop Edwards noted that following on the path of the explorers "Hume and Hovell, the first Gundagai settlers found a wonderful land on which to establish a town, which was gazetted in 1838 but until 1850, relied on ministry from Yass." A local settler named Warby is recorded