This week, Roy felt it was a perfect time to head towards the Hunter Valley. With the weather just starting to warm up and spring around the corner, it is a perfect time to take a country drive, stop for a picnic, and admire the scenery. One place which Roy thinks is well worth a stop for its unusual scenery is Kurri Kurri. This town is full of public art, dozens of murals which depict the town history.
If you would like to visit Kurri Kurri it is located in the Hunter Valley (NSW), not far from Cessnock. To get there, take the F3 Freeway, and exit onto Freemans Drive. Follow the signs to Kurri Kurri. Kurri Kurri is a small town, but one with a long history of coal mining, and close by is the Richmond Vale Railway Museum which is well worth a stop.
Kurri Kurri is the central town in an area of the Hunter called the South Maitland Coalfields. In the early 1900s, the coalfields in Newcastle were running out, and when Sir Edgeworth David proved that the area had the largest (known) coal seam in the Southern Hemisphere, mining activities shifted to the South Maitland Coalfields. Kurri Kurri was established in 1902 and was a centre of coalmining activity, with many of the people in the town, and in the surrounding villages, involved in the mining industry. By the mid 1960s however, the coalmining was almost over. Although other light industries moved into the area after the coalmining finished, the levels of unemployment in the town increased. There wasn’t a lot to do in Kurri Kurri, and the tourists just continued through the town on their way to the vineyards.
This is when the murals started to appear. In 2003, a local group decided to embark on ‘The Mural Project’, which aimed to paint murals around the Kurri Kurri area which would encourage people to stop and visit the town. They succeeded. Since the murals began to be painted, over 50 have been completed, and people now come specifically to Kurri Kurri to enjoy the open air art gallery. The murals don’t feature random themes though, they showcase the history and heritage of the area, telling the story of the town and its people. They are also cleverly painted to provide a fun puzzle for children – can they spot the kookaburra (the symbol of Kurri Kurri) in every mural? If you would like to learn more about the murals and where they can be found, click here.