Koorawatha is a town in the

South West Slopes The South Western Slopes, also known as the South West Slopes, is a region predominantly in New South Wales, Australia. It covers the lower inland slopes of the Great Dividing Range, extending from north of Dunedoo through central NSW and into ...

region of

New South Wales New South Wales (commonly abbreviated as NSW) is a States and territories of Australia, state on the Eastern states of Australia, east coast of :Australia. It borders Queensland to the north, Victoria (state), Victoria to the south, and South ...

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising mainland Australia, the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and list of islands of Australia, numerous smaller isl ...

, on the

Olympic Highway Olympic Highway is a rural road in the Central West, New South Wales, central western and Riverina, south-eastern Riverina regions of New South Wales, Australia. It services rural communities, links Hume Highway with Mid-Western Highway, and ...

between

Cowra Cowra () is a town in the Central West, New South Wales, Central West region of New South Wales, Australia. It is the largest population centre and the council seat for the Cowra Shire, with a population of 8,254. Cowra is located approximate ...

and

Young Young may refer to: * Offspring, the product of reproduction of a new organism produced by one or more parents * Youth, the time of life when one's age is low, often meaning the time between childhood and adulthood Music * The Young, an America ...

. It was once a large and thriving centre of activity but now has only a hotel and a cafe. The Koorawatha Hotel has a long narrow bar and keen-eyed patrons may notice that there is a rather elongated-looking wombat on top of the ‘fridge. At the 2016 census, Koorawatha had a population of 427, which had grown to 450 at the 2021 census. The town's name is derived from an Aboriginal word for "pine trees". Koorawatha is located near the Illunie Range which contains the Koorawatha Nature Reserve, an important tract of virgin bushland. Keen bird watchers may find much to reward them at the Koorawatha Falls area at the Nature Reserve. For several years until recently Koorawatha had its own newsletter, the "Koora Chat", which could be picked up from the Triple J cafe. The German Greens activist

Petra Kelly Petra Karin Kelly (29 November 1947 – 1 October 1992) was a German Green politician and ecofeminist activist. She was a founding member of the German Green Party, the first Green party to rise to prominence both nationally in Germany and w ...

once owned a building block of land in the centre of the village, which she had never actually visited. The photographer

Olive Cotton Olive Cotton (11 July 191127 September 2003) was a pioneering Australian modernist photographer of the 1930s and 1940s working in Sydney. Cotton became a national "name" with a retrospective and touring exhibition 50 years later in 1985. A book ...

(1911–2003) lived on a farm near Koorawatha for more than fifty years. The township is famous for a gun battle between police and the bushranger Ben Hall. On 20 May 1864 Hall, ably assisted by Tom Gordon and Jimmy Dunleavy attempted to hold up the Bang Bang Hotel (demolished in the 1940s) but found themselves involved in a desperate gun battle with two policemen. Hall and his accomplices were forced to retreat. After this they proceeded to the Bang Bang hotel, and held up all those on the front verandah, instructing them to stay where they were. Two constables Scott and McNamara were at the stables tending their horses and upon seeing this drew their pistols. John Gilbert, the notorious bushranger who was part of Hall's gang opened fire and fired three shots at the constables who returned fire, advancing towards the mounted bushrangers as they fired forcing Mount and Gilbert to retreat. While McNamara kept Mount and Gilbert at bay, Scott took careful aim at Hall as he galloped away - and fired. The bullet struck his hat knocking it from his head. Gilbert and Mount galloped after Hall abandoning the robbery. At the site of the gun battle there is a sign where the old Bang Bang Hotel used to be. It is inconspicuously located by a peppercorn tree in the township, about half a kilometre west from the Olympic Highway. "The Decline of the North", a poem by Peter Porter, makes reference to rustic scenes near Koorawatha, which he visited in the mid-1970s with his two daughters, Katherine and Jane. The phrase "armoured lizards" refers to ''

Tiliqua rugosa ''Tiliqua rugosa'', most commonly known as the shingleback skink, stumptail skink or bobtail lizard, is a short-tailed, slow-moving species of blue-tongued skink (genus ''Tiliqua'') endemic to Australia. It is commonly known as the shingleback ...

'' subsp. ''asper'', a docile, endemic, easily caught species, otherwise known by their common name of Eastern shingleback.

Notable residents

, photographer and teacher

References

External links

"The Decline of the North"
( Peter Porter) {{authority control Towns in New South Wales Hilltops Council