Author: Visit Wagga Wagga team
First published: 28 Mar 2022.

During his 33 years in the RAAF, Peter had four postings in Wagga Wagga. On his first posting in 1969, he was lucky enough to meet his wife. After retiring from his post as Chief Driving Instructor, which saw him travel to all bases across Australia, Peter chose Wagga to come back to and retire.

“It’s smack bang in the middle of everything, and we’d always really enjoyed living here – the decision was actually quite easy.”

Peter now volunteers three to four times a month at the aviation heritage centre at the RAAF Base Wagga.

“Everybody who joins the RAAF goes to the base at Wagga, and there’s a 99.9% chance they’ll come back again for a training course. Couple that with the large role the base played in World War II and there’s a large amount of people who have a personal connection with the base but also with Wagga.”

Peter’s top five things to do in Wagga Wagga + Surrounds:

1. RAAF Wagga Aviation Heritage Centre: Usually it’s the “Gate Guardians” out the front that draw them in, they say ‘Oooh planes!’ and then we get them to keep looking. We have the details of everyone who came through the base and other bases in the Riverina during the War, so visitors can look up what their relatives did, as well as changing exhibitions and video displays.
2. Wagga Wagga Rail Heritage Museum: The museum houses over 500 historic railway items from catering and stationary equipment to communication devices and mechanical items in the Porter’s Room of the Wagga Wagga Railway Station.
3. Temora Aviation Museum: It’s a great complex and the flying displays are second to none – a fabulous day out.
4. Victory Memorial Gardens: In addition to all the war memorials dotted throughout the park, we always take a bag of bread and feed the ducks on the lagoon too.
5. Forest Hill: My wife and I have lived in the suburb of Forest Hill on a couple of our postings in Wagga Wagga, and since moving here in retirement, we built our new home in the suburb. We love it – it is close to everything, great community and now it is really growing and full of life.