HODDYWELL History
The idea occurred in 1978 when 2 keen Target Archers from the
Moorabbin Archery Club in Victoria, having been through the Club
membership scheme of working bees, committee meetings and becoming
office bearers, decided there was a need for a commercial facility where
you could go on a casual basis and simply enjoy shooting arrows.
So without to much thought 50 acres of land was purchased in West
Australia. ( In W.A. because prices were within our limited budget)
The property was situated 85 km from Perth in the Shire of Toodyay and locality of HODDY'S WELL.
To keep a connection with the area we combined the words Hoddy's and
Well into one new word and called the property HODDYWELL and the business was called HODDYWELL
ARCHERY this name was first registered in 1978. Later to generate
more public interest we added the word PARK. And so Australia's 1st
Archery park came into being." HODDYWELL ARCHERY PARK." Initially, being
Target Archers we cleared approximately 2 acres of land, mostly by hand
and in the middle of summer. Here we set up 8 official 90m, 70m,50m and
30m Target lanes. We organised competitions such as the Hoddywell
Open, Hoddywell Longbow , Indoor Speed shoots and competitions aimed at
bringing the Target Archers and Bowhunting / Field Archers together.
Only mild interest was shown by the established
Archery clubs in Perth. We found that the Public casual Archer
soon got bored repeatedly shooting at the same target .Things were not going to well
until we installed a mini 9 Target Field Trail , played in a similar
fashion to mini Golf. Families and social clubs could relate to
walking around a set trail shooting at targets of a different size set at different
distances. While we still have one 90m Target lane the Park now has 3
Field Trails , 9 Target Beginners, 16 Target Intermediate and 19 Target
Advanced.
In the early days the Pro Shop was an old refurbished shed already on
site, it had a
leaky roof and no ceiling and was extremely hot in summer, it soon became to small and the new show rooms
were built, also around this time the camping grounds were upgraded to a Caravan park
.
Initially equipment sold was sourced from eastern states importers , but
as this became more and more expensive we started to source all products
directly from the manufacturers and so reduce prices . Lower prices
meant more people could afford to get into the sport of archery.
Now there is a steady flow of people using the park as a recreational
destination, some of these people purchase equipment to use on their own
properties and some become members of the various Clubs in Perth |
