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Gunnedah is known as the Koala Capital of the World. Thanks to the special tree corridors that have been planted throughout the town, it is home to Australia’s largest and healthiest population of koalas who are regularly spotted walking along the residential streets and bush tracks.
The black soil plains surrounding this thriving centre comprise some of the richest agricultural and grazing land in NSW and the farming economy is showcased each year at the Ag-Quip field days which attract more than 100,000 people from all over Australia.
This land of sweeping plains and the rugged mountain ranges beyond also served as the inspiration for Australia’s best loved and most quoted poem, ‘My Country’.
Poet Dorothea Mackellar came to ‘love a sunburnt country’ on visits to her brothers properties in the area and the town pays homage to its favourite adopted daughter at the Dorothea Mackellar Memorial Wing in the Visitor Information Centre and through the trail of poetry plaques set out along the main streets.
Prior to white settlement in 1834, the Gunn-e-darr people of the Kamilaroi tribe inhabited the Gunnedah area. One of the first identities to live in the area was the “Red Chief”; the legendary Aboriginal warrior whose life story has been told by Ion Idriess in his book entitled “The Red Chief”.
Gunnedah offers a diversity of attractions from the Water Tower and Rural Museums to Waterways Wildlife Park and Lake Keepit – truly something for everyone!
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