100 Towns

1. Entry sign to Capertee Valley 2. The valley from lookout 3. Railway station 4. Royal Hotel, Capertee 5. Catholic church, on the outskirts of the town. The canyon of the Capertee Valley is apparently 1 km longer than the Grand Canyon but not as deep. It's beautiful and impressive but to me nowhere near as impressive as the Grand Canyon. Sheep properties were established in the valley in the 1840s and the village, with a reliable water source, was a good rest stop on the road to Mudgee. With the arrival of the railway in 1882 the valley was opened up for coal, limestone and old shale mining. It's a small town (population around 200) but has lots of facilities - a school, police station (with police who are often out breath testing), community hall, Royal hotel, churches and a combined garage/shop/post office so ticking along nicely. The town itself may not be the perfect destination but the surrounding area is magnificent and there are bed and breakfasts and far...

1. Poplar trees by the roadside  2. Plough I have not done justice to this small town.  We were at the end of a long day's driving.  It is a small active community but I have not at this point been able to find anything about its history. It is clearly part of the agricultural fabric of the area today.

1. Royal Hotel, Cumnock 2. Old bank 3. Old shop 4.  Animals on bikes promotion 5. One of the animals on bikes 6. Another animal on bike Cumnock (population 288) is a small town with a big sense of fun and enterprise.  They were the first to start the $1 farmhouse rental scheme made famous by the recent ABC documentary of a similar scheme at Trundle. The community also inspired the Animals on Bikes trail of paddock art which runs from Molong to Dubbo and now has over 100 whimsical creations to surprise and delight, The grain silo stands sentinel beside a railway line that is closed, the historic buildings have seen better days but this is community of today.

1. Peel Church 2. Home 3. Tennis Court I wonder if the bell at the church still peals at Peel.  The town (population around 100)which is just 19kms outside the city of Bathurst is a cluster of homes and churches. I understand that the Catholic Church is now a private home. Like most of these towns it seems to have popped on the map in the 1850-60s but it is not clear to me whether it started as a mining town or a service town on the route to the goldfields. There was a reef mine in the area at some time but in 1866 the population was just 250 people so it was not one of those boom towns where tens of thousands of miners gathered. View the location of Peel on the map.