Weddin Mountains National Park
Weddin Mountains is a national park located in New South Wales, Australia, west of Sydney. It is a small, crescent-shaped range, with a high point some, running roughly north south with steep cliffs on the eastern side sloping more gradually down to the plain in the west. Weddin mountains is a small patch of remnant vegetation which escaped clearing due to its ruggedness. Many aircraft pass overhead on their way from Sydney to Adelaide, is part of the Lachlan Fold system and is Wiradjuri country.
History
Bushrangers
Ben Hall, who plundered the Forbes-Grenfell area in the 1850s used the Weddin Mountains as a refuge. He holed up in a cave on the north-west side of the park with his gang, which included Johnnie Gilbert and Frank Gardiner. It is rumoured Ben Hall buried a treasure here that has not yet been located.Seaton's Farm
There is a walk around 'Seaton's Historic Farm', which is now part of the national park. Seatons Farm is how one man and his wife turned every bit of wire into something useful. Jim Seaton hand made 3 km/1.8 miles of kangaroo proof fence by hand, with posts of local saplings, which are rot and vermin proof. The property was occupied in the late 1920s and during the Depression it was set up as a farm. Times and the land were hard and the buildings represent this. The sheds have walls made from flattened corrugated iron so that it stretched further. One of the sheds is full of old wire, iron sheets, bottles, everything you can imagine. All the old machinery is still there, sitting where it was when the family sold the property to the Government in the 1980s. A unique place, showing how the less well off farmers did it in the early and mid 1900s.Wildlife
There are 216 species of animals recorded in Weddin Mountains National Park, the vast majority of which are birds. The species list includes three types of wallaby, one of which is the endangered brush tailed rock wallaby. The species list also includes painted honeyeater, swift parrot, little lorikeet and turquoise parrot. Pest species seen in the park are cats, rabbits, foxes, goats and sheep.The park is part of the South-west Slopes of NSW Important Bird Area, identified as such by BirdLife International because of its importance for the conservation of swift parrots and superb parrots.