Dubbo - Dubbo 6.37

Dubbo is a city in the Orana Region of New South Wales, Australia. It is the largest population centre in the Orana region, with an estimated population of 40,975 as of 2012, and serves an estimated catchment of 120,000.It is located at the intersection of the Newell, Mitchell and Golden highways. The nearest city, Orange, is approximately 144km away. Dubbo is located approximately 275m above sea level, 303km north-west of Sydney (400km by road) and is a major road and rail freight hub to other parts of New South Wales. It is linked by national highways north to Brisbane, south to Melbourne, east to Sydney and Newcastle, and west to Broken Hill and Adelaide.Dubbo is included in the rainfall records and weather forecast region for the Central West Slopes and in the Central West Slopes and Plains division of the Bureau of Meteorology forecasts.HistoryEvidence of habitation by Indigenous Australians dates back approximately 40,000 years.The explorer and surveyor John Oxley (1784–1828, born, Yorkshire, England) was the first European to report on the area now known as Dubbo in 1818. The first permanent European settler in the area was English born Robert Dulhunty, described as one of the wealthiest citizens in the Australian colony at the time. There are records of squatters being given permission to set up large sheep and cattle stations in the area in 1824 but these were not maintained. Dulhunty occupied a property, known as Dubbo station (established in 1828), from the early 1830s on a squatting basis. With the passing of the Squatting Act in 1836 he took out a licence on the property.