A Sunday drive in Canowindra
Ok, now try this quick quiz. How do you pronounce the Town Canowindra? Did you say "Can-o-win-dra"; well you are wrong. Believe it or not it is called "Ca-noun-dra". How did anyone work that out? You'd better be right as the locals get upset if you don't. The name is a Wiradjuri word meaning "Home". Note we are now out of Kamilaroi Country and in the ancestral home of the Wiradjuri Tribe.
My Friend John was right, this is a real Country Heritage Town dating from 1844. The entire length and all the Buildings in the short Main Street are Heritage Listed. The structures, not all renovated are in reasonable condition. It looked like the little Street once had about 6 Pubs operating in its heyday.The Street is narrow with a bend towards the middle. This Gaskill Street,
known to the locals as "Bendy Street". It follows the bend of the old bullock track and may have been straight if the original bridge had been built where it was originally planned. Due to the difficulties in bridging the large flood Plains of the Belubula river, the Bridge was built slightly upstream, with Gaskill Street curving with the river to the new crossing.
Bendy (Gaskill) Street Canowindra
There is an Information Centre manned by Volunteers who were friendly and tried to but couldn't help with any Historical details (as usual). The Lady did say that the Museum next door had all the info I was looking for however, due to lack of Volunteers it was closed until further notice. I did manage to find a Pamphlet with a few clues.
Canowindra, a town of 2100 (sure!), attracted to the fertile lands soon after the foundation of Bathurst in 1815. It developed into a frontier village at the river ford as settlement moved westward. From the mid 1840s businesses opened on either side of the River. Traffic crossed Private Land until a bridge was built in 1874. Canowindra diverted traffic to Grenfell and Forbes during the Gold Rush. Gold was the motive to be active all around the districts and Canowindra was a favourite place for Bushrangers to replenish their supplies and evade capture from the Police. The arrival of the railway from Cowra in 1910 cased dramatic growth in the Town with many of the old Primitive buildings being replaced with Double Storey structures remain to this day.
An Old Steam Tractor on the edge of Town
Strange looking Sheep in this place!
Four Pubs for 2100 only People
The Royal
The Old Vic Inn
Old Houses that I liked
Commercial Buildings
Finally, there is on other thing that Canowindra is famous for. "In 1955 an observant Road-worker saved a large slab of rock with strange markings on the underside by pushing it to the side of the road. Little did he know at that time that this action would lead to the discovery of one of the world's Greatest fossil Deposits." It was latter determined that over 100 complete Devonian Fish Fossils were in that rock. A search began in 1973 to find the original Fossil Site and 20 years later in 1993 in was finally located. Evidence came to light of a dramatic fish kill that occurred 360 million years ago in the Devonian Period or "The Age of Fishes". Four different species were found and a single well preserved specimen has been named "Canowindra grossi". Since then about 4000 specimens have been collected from around Canowindra. the original Slab is housed in the "Age of Fisheries" display at the Information centre. I managed to sneak a peek until the Lady Attendant politely but firmly pointed out the sign and the $10 admission fee. I didn't think it was worth that for a closer look.
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