Day 125 Orange

Today we drove to Orange our last stop before being home again after 4 months on the road. The countryside is just so beautiful, it was a really lovely drive. Owing to its altitude, Orange has a temperate oceanic climate, with warm summers (though with cool mornings) and cold, wet winters with frequent morning frosts. The city is relatively wet for an inland location owing to the orographic lifting brought on by Mount Canobolas, especially during the cooler months when snow falls. Orange is the snowiest major city in Australia. So it is much cooler here with 7 degrees expected overnight.

We stopped at Rankin Springs which had a few quirky art installations.





The Weethalle area was set aside as homestead farms for returned soldiers in 1921. The Rankins Springs railway line was extended to Weethalle in 1922. Land clearing commenced and by 1923 the first wheat from the area was delivered to the Weethalle railway station.

Weethalle Silo Art in Weethalle, was painted by artist Heesco Khosnaran in July 2017 and is New South Wales' first completed silo art mural. It is a tribute to the Bland Shire agricultural heritage, featuring a local grain farmer, a shearer, and sheep appearing to watch over the plains from a balcony.

The Royal Hotel in Weethalle, was built in 1928 at a recorded construction cost of £13,000.







West Wyalong was the next town we passed through. A historic gold-mining town and major agricultural hub. Founded in 1895 following a local gold discovery in 1893, its famous winding "Crooked Mile" main street was built to avoid original tree stumps and diggings. It serves as New South Wales' largest cereal-growing district alongside sheep grazing, eucalyptus oil production, and proximity to the Cowal Gold Mine.




The grand heritage building on the corner of Main Street and Church Street in West Wyalong originally opened as a branch of the Bank of New South Wales in 1918, succeeding a humble 12x10-foot tent branch that first commenced business on March 26, 1894.



St Mary's Catholic Church the current grand Romanesque church building was constructed 1928/29. The striking building measures 114 feet long by 40 feet wide, featuring a prominent 100-foot tower. It was designed by architect W. P. Connolly and built by Melbourne contractor John Dunton



The former Wyalong Court House (now the Wyalong Museum). Designed in 1900 by renowned Government Architect Walter Liberty Vernon, and built by contractor Albert Brown for £2,500.
Constructed of brick with contrasting roughcast rendered areas, featuring distinctive Diocletian-style windows with brick arches and an octagonal roof vent with a cupola and spire.



We then stopped at Cooinda Reserve which preserves the region’s 19th-century gold rush legacy and local pioneering history through reconstructed landmarks and interpretive displays. A striking replica of a mine shaft head commemorating the original True Blue Mine, which operated from January 1894 to 1920. A replica bark building recalling the original structure erected in 1893 on what is now Neeld Street by early settler George Neeld, whose family’s gold discovery sparked the local Wyalong gold rush, in the late 1800's. Realistic wooden/carved lifesize statues that stand beside the replica of George Neeld's historic bark hut, paying tribute to the pioneering Neeld family. A massive 294-tonne excavator bucket donated by Evolution Mining in 2020, representing modern gold extraction and its connection to the traditional lands of the Wiradjuri people after logging 50,000 operational hours at the nearby Cowal Gold Operation. Historic stills and interpretive panels detailing the district's past commercial eucalyptus oil production.









Wyalong First World War Soldiers Memorial Hall is a heritage brick building located in Wyalong, featuring two prominent white marble honour rolls dedicated to local service members from the First World War. Built in 1920 local women, particularly through the Red Cross, raised nearly £1,000 to help finance the project.

Following a massive local gold rush that began in 1893, the Municipality of Wyalong was officially proclaimed on December 2, 1899. The council chambers building was completed and officially opened in 1902.

The former Courthouse designed by the renowned Government Architect Walter Liberty Vernon, the building highlights innovative 1900s concepts regarding natural light and ventilation. Constructed by Albert Brown at a cost of £2,500. Built with brick and contrasting roughcast rendered areas, featuring Diocletian-motif windows with brick arches, corbelled chimneys, and a distinctive central octagonal roof vent equipped with a cupola and spire





Amongst the tall grasses we found Road Kill is a satirical 3.5-tonne Corten steel sculpture by Victorian artist Jimmy Rix. A humorous role-reversal depicting a giant kangaroo taking revenge on a vehicle with a cricket bat amidst cartoon sparks, challenging viewers to reflect on human impacts on the environment.




We arrived in Forbes in time for lunch, and then had a look at this beautiful town with amazing buildings, it was lovely being a public holiday we vritually had the streets to ourselves.

Town Hall opened in 1891 and designed in the Renaissance Revival style as a symbol of the town's booming post-gold rush wealth and civic consolidation. Following the discovery of gold in the region in 1861, Forbes rapidly transformed from a tent settlement into one of New South Wales's wealthiest and most populous goldfields, paving the way for permanent municipal infrastructure. £5,000 to construct. The renowned opera singer Dame Nellie Melba performed inside the hall, marking a high point in the building's early cultural history. It also featured in the movie The Dish.



St John's Anglican Church in 1861 the first timber and weatherboard church was erected on the current site on land donated by Josiah Strickland. Costing around £150, it served as the first church on the goldfield and doubled as a school for up to 70 children in 1862. In 1874–1877 Construction of the current Victorian Gothic rusticated stone nave took place, designed by architect Benjamin Backhouse and built by Rodgerson and Co for roughly £2,050. Josiah Strickland contributed an additional £500 to the building fund.



Post Office Designed by the NSW Colonial Architect's Office under James Barnet and built by P.M. Vaughan, the current Victorian Italianate building was occupied on 8 September 1881. The town clock was added to the tower in 1885, and its mechanism was electrified in November 1982. Telephone Exchange opened in 1900 with 29 connected lines, later upgraded to an automatic system in 1962.



Wespac Bank building, the site's banking lineage in Forbes began around the mid-1870s (with roots dating back approximately 146–150 years in the gold-rush regional town), established initially as a branch of the Bank of New South Wales—the institution that later became Westpac.



Former ANZ Bank Building was built in 1892, constructed in the grand Italianate style using stuccoed brick, featuring a prominent tower, square-headed windows with sill emphasis, and bracketed eaves along its hipped roof. Corbel supports underneath the roofline suggest it originally featured a slate roof.



The former Commercial Banking Company of Sydney (CBC Bank) building built in 1884 as one of the earliest substantial bank buildings in Forbes. Built of stuccoed brick featuring two storeys, a projecting rustited entrance porch with an arched entry and upper pediment, double verandahs with iron lace balustrading, and round-arched ground-floor windows.



St Laurence O'Toole Catholic Church built in a Gothic design using local rusticated stone, the original nave of the church was officially opened and consecrated in 1880, featuring its distinctive corner stone spire and rose window.



The current Forbes Library building began its life as a School of Arts before transitioning into a Literary Institute. Built in 1898 construction began on the original building, which served as a prominent social and cultural meeting place for local community leaders and town figures.



The Forbes Courthouse is a historic late-Victorian building completed in 1880 as the second courthouse in the town on the site of an earlier 1863 courthouse. Built in the late Victorian Italianate style, it features a double-height central courtroom flanked by single-storey wings, arched window openings, an arched entrance portico with a coat of arms, and a balustraded parapet at the roof line. The exterior utilizes rendered brick with a slate-clad hipped roof. Originally, the court served a massive western district of New South Wales that included neighbouring towns like Parkes and Condobolin.



The Forbes Police Station was established around 1862 during the height of the Lachlan gold rush. Early police infrastructure included timber barracks and stables built at Camp Hill by late 1861 to manage the sudden influx of over 30,000 diggers. The first officer in charge of the police force in Forbes was the notable Sir Frederick Pottinger, who led operations against famous bushrangers like Frank Gardiner, Ben Hall, and Johnnie Gilbert who operated in the region between 1862 and 1865. By February 1864, the Forbes Police Station served as the head station overseeing 15 regional stations across the district.



The historic cast-iron fountain in Victoria Park was donated to the town in 1891 by the local mayor and merchant, William Thomas.



The historic Band Rotunda is a central feature of the town's heritage-listed Victoria Park. It serves as a prominent example of late 19th-century municipal architecture and community identity. The area now known as Victoria Park was originally a canvas tent zone in the 1860s during the Lachlan Gold Field rush. It was proclaimed a public recreation area in the 1870s and renamed Victoria Square in 1879. The initial iteration of a rotunda was introduced to the park during the 1880s. In 1891, coinciding with a period of grand public development in Forbes a prominent cast-iron design was established.