Location: Mount Canobolas Road, Orange, NSW, 2800
Country: Wiradjuri
LGA: Orange City Council
Region: Central Tablelands, NSW
Website: https://www.orange.nsw.gov.au/parks-reserves/mount-canobolas/
Map: Below
Gaarnha Bula Mount Canoblas, an extinct volcano near the IAT city of Orange, NSW, is the highest peak in a straight line between the Blue Mountains and the West Australian coast, and an excellent site from which to view the night sky. Geologists tell us that its last volcanic eruptions occurred some 11 million years ago.
ABC News 17 July 2023: Orange landmark renamed Gaanha Bula-Mount Canobolas to recognise Wiradjuri connection
The name of a renowned mountain that dominates the skyline of Orange in the central west of New South Wales has been changed to reflect its significance to the local First Nations people.
Orange’s Mount Canobolas will now be known as Gaanha Bula-Mount Canobolas, which means two shoulders in the Wiradjuri language.
Wiradjuri elder Neil Ingram lodged the name-change application for Mount Canobolas with the Geographic Names Board in December.
Mr Ingram said it had been a long journey to have the Wiradjuri people’s connection to the mountain recognised. …
Mr Ingram said the dual name would play a crucial role in teaching young First Nations people about the importance of Indigenous language.
“Aboriginal place naming is central to our language revitalisations, and helps reawaken, preserve, and grow our language, culture and identity,” he said.
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Captions
Top feature photo: Four members of the Sydney Observatory Advisory Board — E Du Faur, C J Merfield, W J Macdonnell and H A Lenehan — pose in front of a cairn on top of Mount Canobolas in 1907, while inspecting it as a possible relocation site for their observatory. Photo by J. Brookes, 20 May, 1907. Contributed by Rod Somerville from the Powerhouse Museum Collection, Object No. P3549-92, https://collection.powerhouse.com.au/object/381322 accessed 20 January 2025.
Image no. 2: Wiradjuri signage on top of Gaanha bula telling the mountain’s Wiradjuri story. Photo by Merrill Findlay, 2 August 2024.
Gaarnha Bula Mount Canobolas State Conservation Area is home to a rich variety of mosses, liverworts, hornworts, lichens, orchids and other rare, endangered and threatened species, many of them endemic. It is considered a biodiversity hotspot, as Dr Col Bower describes in the video below.
This little mountain also hosts an array of transmission towers for television stations and other infrastructure, including television transmitters for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC), Prime7 (formerly Prime Television), 10 Regional (formerly Southern Cross Nine and Southern Cross Ten), WIN Television, Airservices Australia and the Royal Australian Air Force.
Caption
Transmission towers on the top of Gaarnha Bula Mount Canobolas. Photo by Merrill Findlay, 2 August, 2024.
Several bushwalking trails and downhill bike tracks have been constructed on the mountain slopes, along with a number of vineyards and wineries, which produce excellent cool climate wines. In winter, Gaanha bula can be covered in snow.
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Page created 15 January 2025. Last updated 25 September 2025.
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