THE success of this year’s heritage festival has been a real surprise as crowd’s travelled from afar to soak-up lessons in this region’s history.
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It was the second time Tamworth Regional Council has hosted the festival and interest in the event has boomed, heritage working group chair Juanita Wilson said.
“There has been real interest in the heritage festival, surprisingly from a lot of younger people,” Cr Wilson said.
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Cr Wilson growth in the festival would allow more avenues of Tamworth history to be explored and gave a few suggestions for future events.
“Our aviation history is really strong,” she said.
“East West Airlines was founded here.
“Environmentally, we could expand the sites a lot more.
“There’s a rich heritage associated with the lookout.”
She said the success was due to the enthusiasm built on the foundation of the first festival, last year.
“Interest in heritage is snowballing,” she said.
“People are aware, how we are as a community and our built environment is dependant on how we were 100 years ago.”
The ball got rolling after Len Waters Stories Under the Stars event which attracted close to 200 people, travelling from afar as Dubbo, for a lesson in celestial significance to Kamilaroi culture.
With less than ideal conditions for star-gazing on the night, Cr Wilson said there seemed to be calls for more instances of the event throughout the year.
Cr Wilson said tours of Goonoo Goonoo station sold out within days, but the biggest surprise of the festival was the Carthage Street walk.
The councillor said 120 people took part in the walk along the East Tamworth street while Rod Hobbs talked about some local built-history.
She said the interest registered “highlighted the need for more protective measures” around what built-environment still existed in Tamworth.