Canowindra, Eugowra and Forbes

Thursday the 29^th after leaving the Japanese Gardens at Cowra we drove to Canowindra which was only about 40 kms. The main street of Canowindra follows the winding route of the old bullock track. The many veranda-ed buildings have seen the entire town centre along Gaskill Street classified by the National Trust. It is just such a classic looking old world charm country town. Hopefully the photos show that:

We moved on to Eugowra and stopped there for lunch. Eugowra is just a tiny town and its claim to fame is that the richest ever bushranger gold robbery took place five kilometres north of the town. Frank Gardiner and his gang of eight bushrangers robbed a coach with four Police escorts. They blocked the road with two bullockwagons and hid behind boulders. When the coach came around the gang fired their guns, the horses spooked and the coach turned over. Two Police were shot but survived. To cut a long story short most of the gold was eventually recovered as the Police caught up with the gang who let the horse go that was carrying the gold. Only one gang member was convicted and he was hanged. There were various outcomes for the other gang members. Ben Hall was a member of the gang and he was shot dead eventually.


On many walls in the town there are murals which are very cool. I did not photograph them all but did get the best.

Then it was on to Forbes. I had worked out that we could stay at the caravan park near the Tourist Information Centre for the same price as staying at the Showground so we went to that van park. We felt that it was better to support a business rather than the council, seeing as it was the same price.

After set up we went to the Info Centre and worked out what we wanted to do and see whilst at Forbes.  Then took a drive around town and saw some areas that were further out than the CBD.

Next morning and Linda and I went to Aussie Biscuits which is a business run by House With No Steps. They gave us a guided tour and it was quite interesting.


Then we walked around the CBD and checked out the historic buildings. Forbes was established around 1872. Most of these buildings you will see were built in the 1880s and they are very impressive and well kept.

After the buildings we checked out the lake area and found that the Forbes Bowling Club had a nice deck at the waters edge. So we dropped in there for lunch and they did very good Chinese.

After lunch we went to the Forbes Historical Museum which was the old Osborn Hotel.

It was a pretty good museum. I was impressed with these huge wooden wheels attached to an ancient trailer. This trailer was pulled by draught horses or bullocks.

Then there were these water troughs carved out of wood. The farmer used hollow tree trunks of course to give them a good head start.

That night we met Paul who pulled into the spot beside us at the caravan park. He was travelling to Adelaide with his show dogs, a breed with a name like Brittons. They are the national dog of France. His wife was going to fly in to Adelaide when she finished her work week. You would swear one of those dogs could talk it was so intelligent. Paul had a lung problem and was placed on a transplant list. He was given 18 months to get a transplant.