I recently learned that there is a place in Australia called Wagga Wagga. This is by far the coolest name EVER! And it’s not a tiny backwater, mind you, but a decent-sized town! I imagine myself standing before a counter in a government office with some bureaucrat jotting down information about me, barking at me without bothering to look up:
Not far away to the west you have Grong Grong, to the south is Walla Walla.
Up the hills a bit is the quintessential country racetrack at Bong Bong
Over on the seaside you have Curl Curl then up the coast an hour or so over the Mooney Mooney bridge is Woy Woy.
It’s worth noting that Wagga Wagga is pronounced ‘Wogga Wogga’. When I was a kid I saw a cartoon (Popeye I think) in which Wagga Wagga was a point on a treasure map - the clue was a picture of a dog wagging it’s tail, they pronounced it wag rather than wog and it just sounded weird.
The way I heard it, “Walla” means “Water” in local tribal vernacular and “Walla Walla” means “Many Waters.” I see that Wikipedia has it as “Place of Many Waters.”
Other places in Washington with double names are Mats Mats Bay, Hamma Hamma River (Falls and Inlet, too.) and Loup Loup Pass. I’m sure I’m forgetting one or two that may be actual towns. Let me think on it…
Well there is a national highway directly between the two places, a distance of about 96km or 60 miles.
It’s officially called the Olympic Way. So that section of the Olympic Way could very reasonably be called … (the Olympic Way is the route the Olympic torch relay used in the lead-up to the 1956 Melbourne games)