Canowindra, New South Wales

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Canowindra (pronounced Can-noun-dra) is an historic township located near Cowra in the central west of New South Wales, Australia in Cabonne Shire. Canowindra is on the Belubula River. The curving main street, Gaskill Street, is partly an urban conservation area.

A post office opened at Canowindra in 1847 with mail coming from Carcoar, but the village was handicapped as part of a main route to the lower Lachlan, first by the lack of a bridge and later by the construction of the railway to Orange. Today the main street has an old-world air, with its kerbside verandah posts lining the dog-leg course of what was once a bullock team track.

In October 1863, Ben Hall's gang took over the village for three days and entertained the whole population, as well as some stray travellers, all herded into the inn. An account of the incident was reported in the Bathurst Times, also quoted in the Maitland Mercury. A monument to Ben Hall, on the site of Robinson's inn, the Travellers' Rest, was erected in 1951, but evidently further research has indicated that the events recorded here happened at the inn on the other side of the river. The Royal Hotel is on the site of another inn owned by Robinson and the plaque on the wall indicates present day understanding that this was the inn where Ben Hall's gang had their spree.

Other notable buildings include the nursing home, the Junction Hotel, Finn's Building, the Victoria Hotel, the former Bank of NSW and the former CBC Bank.

Canowindra is the site of one of the world's great fossil discoveries. A chance discovery by a road worker in 1956 uncovered a rich find of 360 million year old fish fossils, dating from the Devonian period in the Paleozoic era. The "Canowindra slab" was removed to the Australia Museum, Sydney. The fish had been buried when trapped in a pool of water that dried up, stranding two armoured antiarch placoderms, Remigolepis walkeri and Bothriolepis yeungae,^[1] and Canowindra grassi, a lobe-finned crossopterygian fish, with two rare juvenile arthrodire placoderms, Groenlandaspis species.

No further fossils had been recovered until January 1993, when a trial dig on the site using an excavator rediscovered the fossil stratum, where the mass mortality of fishes was preserved in detail (see Lagerstätte). Specimens can be viewed in the specially established Age of Fishes Museum, with scientific support and funding from the Australian Museum. The Canowindra site has now been listed as part of Australia's National Heritage because of its international scientific importance.

Canowindra is also popularly known as the Balloon Capital of Australia. One of the largest festivals in Australia takes place here every April. This is called Marti's Fiesta.