Cowra Van Park, New South Wales, Australia
We visited Grenfell during our Queens Birthday break to Cowra back in 2017, but the street parade as part of the annual Henry Lawson Festival was our main focus then and painting of the silo art hadn't even commenced. So today we revisited Grenfell to view the recently completed silo art and take in some more points of interest.
Of course the annual Henry Lawson Festival is held here because he was born in Grenfell on 17th June 1867. We didn't visit his actual birthplace when we visited in 2017 and so that was our first port of call today. It is marked with an obelisk and there is a series of 12 plaques along a curved path which tell the story of his life from birth on the goldfields until his death on 2nd September 1922.
Adjacent to the cairn is a tree which a plaque informed us was planted in 1924 by his daughter, Mrs Bertha Jago. It looks in good condition for a 95 year old tree!
We learned two interesting things from the history plaques were:
- Henry Lawson's father's name was Niels Larsen. He arrived in Australia as a quartermaster, but "jumped ship" in Melbourne in 1855. After marrying Louisa in 1866 they moved to Emu Creek, the then name for Grenfell. Henry's birth in 1867 prompted the family name change from Larsen to Lawson.
- As a child, Lawson was ridiculed due to his hearing difficulty initiated by an ear infection and by the age of 14 he was profoundly deaf.
Mongolian born, Melbourne street artist Heesco Khosnaran completed the mural early in 2019. It is a compilation of images representing the contemporary farming industry and landscape of the Weddin Shire. The foreground features sheep, cattle, and native birds set in a landscape adorned by the Weddin Mountains National Park. The skyscape incorporates the natural sepia colour of the silo topped with light cloud coverage. It is one of the best of the many silo artworks we've now seen, particularly as a great viewing area is provided.
We walked up and down Grenfell's main street in search of a lunch spot and finished up at Rosa bakery & cafe. As Lucinda said, the proprietor was a very good sales person because at her enthusiastic suggestion we finished up with both sandwiches and rice paper rolls plus an apple turnover to share. In the end we didn't eat the sandwiches and so they'll be tomorrow's lunch. We understand the proprietors are of Vietnamese heritage and so it's understandable that the food was good.
Walking back to the car before heading back to Cowra we came across another mural which showed that beside Henry Lawson, there were other famous or infamous Australians who resided in Grenfell, namely Ben Hall - bushranger, Stan McCabe - cricketer and Jan Lehane - tennis player.
For the second time Lucinda prepared her Impossible Quiche recipe and Bryon cooked it in the Weber. And for the second time it came out looking great and tasted even better, accompanied with an Asian salad. Dessert was banana and peaches with ice-cream. A cuppa finished dinner off nicely.
2025-05-23