Tamworth

Tamworth has been the centre of Australian country music since a local radio station began broadcasting the genre in the 1960s, and the Tamworth Country Music Festival, held over ten days each January, now draws hundreds of thousands of people to a city of some forty-four thousand, with more than a hundred venues, buskers filling Peel Street and the Golden Guitar Awards as its centrepiece. A twelve-metre golden guitar stands at the southern entrance to town beside a wax museum and a walk of stars set into the footpath. Outside the festival, Tamworth is a regional agricultural centre with a strong equine industry, and the surrounding New England country holds gorges and vineyards.

History

The Kamilaroi people, whose language gave English the word budgerigar, lived here before Europeans, and John Oxley passed through the Peel Valley in 1818, naming the river after Robert Peel and praising the country. The first sheep and cattle stations came in 1831, when the Australian Agricultural Company took a lease of 127,000 hectares at Goonoo Goonoo, a company town grew on the river's south-west bank in the 1830s, and in 1850 a public town was gazetted across the river and named after Tamworth in Staffordshire, Peel's constituency; the railway arrived in 1878, and on 9 November 1888 Tamworth became the first place in Australia with electric street lighting from a municipal power station (Wikipedia, Tamworth, New South Wales).

What to look for

• The January festival - ten days of country music across more than a hundred venues.
• The Golden Guitar - the twelve-metre roadside guitar at the town entrance.
• The walk of stars - plaques set into the Peel Street footpath.
• The busking - street performers filling the main street during the festival.

When to go

January for the festival, though January is also the hottest month and accommodation must be booked many months ahead at inflated prices. April to October is far more comfortable for a normal visit, when the town is quiet.

Before you go

Outside the festival there is little to hold a visitor beyond the guitar and the museums. During it, the city is overwhelmed, with camping grounds full and prices high. Summer heat regularly passes thirty-five degrees.

Nearby

The Australian Standing Stones at Glen Innes lie north; Armidale and the gorge country are northeast.

Key facts