Before the town of Grenfell was settled, the area then known as Emu Creek was a farming and grazing region. Cornelius O’Brien was a shepherd working for local landholder John Wood and while grazing a mob of sheep at this site in 1866, O’Brien discovered an outcrop of gold-bearing quartz.

Cornelius rapidly made his way to Young, to register a claim on the site, even though his wife discouraged him – she knew how hard the life of a miner’s wife could be. This site became known as O’Brien’s Reef.

Within eight weeks of the announcement of gold at O’Brien’s Reef, large parties of miners from surrounding diggings arrived and the town grew along the banks of Emu Creek. By January 1867, 10,000 people were on the gold fields. Government surveyors were sent to lay out the town, which had been renamed Grenfell in December 1866 in honour of John Granville Grenfell, a Commissioner of Crown Lands who had been shot by bushrangers and died on 8 December 1866.

At the time the Grenfell gold fields were the richest in the colony with twelve and a half tonnes of gold recovered between 1866 and 1874. By the early 1870s, production started to decline and the Grenfell gold fields became quieter. Following the death of his wife, O’Brien left the district in 1875. Grenfell had evolved into a flourishing farming town where the production of grain and wool were the main industries.

Weddin Mountains National Park is one of the central west’s very special natural reserves. From Grenfell you can see the range country rising on the western horizon, inviting you to come and explore a landscape rich in both natural and cultural heritage.

Foremost on the Weddin’s iconic list is the role it played as a refuge for Ben Hall and his bushranging colleagues in the early 1860s. Here you can visit one of their lookouts, now referred to as Ben Hall’s Cave.

Police surprised a member of  the gang, then led by Frank Gardiner, when he was returning to these lairs in the Weddin Ranges in mid 1862. In the process he left behind a packhorse carrying much of the 77 kg of golden booty the bushrangers had stolen during the famous Escort Rock gold robbery at Eugowra.

Another feature to explore while visiting the Ben Hall Camping Ground and picnic area on the park’s western flank is the historic Seaton’s Farm precinct, which gives an unforgettable insight into harsh, simple life on the land here in the Depression and early  20th century.

To the east, a visit to Holy Camp invites a strenuous walk up to Euraldrie Lookout, to take in the view shown above.