Hoddywell Archery Park

Overview
Hoddywell Archery Park is Australia's first and largest Public Archery Park. Its located in Western Australia, 15km from Toodyay and 85km from Perth.
History
Hoddywell Archery Park was established in 1978 by two Target Archers (Ernst Peter Kaltenbrunner and Ian Camm) from the Moorabbin Archery Club in Victoria, Australia. 50 acres of land was bought in Western Australia due to low prices. The property was 85 km from Perth and 15 km from Toodyay. The property was located in the Shire of Toodyay, in the locality of Hoddy's Well. The name "Hoddy's Well" was combined to "Hoddywell", and the property was named "Hoddywell Archery". This name was first registered in 1978. Later to attraction more interest the word "Park" was added to the name, hence the name, Hoddywell Archery Park.
As the founders of the Archery Park were Target Archers, they cleared 2 acres of land (mostly by hand and in the middle of summer) and set up 8 official 90m, 70m, 50m and 30m target lanes. Archery competitions were also organised including the Hoddywell Open, Hoddywell Longbow, Indoor Speed Shoots and other archery competitions aimed at bringing Target and Bowhunting archers together. Mild interest was shown by the Archery Clubs in the Perth area.
It was soon discovered that the public got bored shooting that same targets, so a mini 9 target trail was installed on the property with different distances and sized targets. This is played to a similar fashion to mini golf. This 9 target trail is still in use today. In addition to the 9 target trail, two others were made. The 16 target Intermediate Trail and 18 Target Advanced Trail.
The original Archery Park building was an old shed already on the property. It had a leaky roof and was extremly hot in summer. It soon got to small and a new building was built in the late 1980s. This building is still in use today. The camping grounds were also upgraded to a Caravan Park.
Hoddywell Archery Park Now
Hoddywell Archery Park became a popular tourist attraction and helped increased tourism in Toodyay and the Avon Valley.

Main Menu

See Also

Main Menu