Ray has another not-so-distant family story line for us.
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BURRAGORANG VALLEY SECOND ARTICLE
My previous article featured a photo of my father on a horse in Burragorang Valley. The above photo shows him in a much more sedate scene in the Valley where he is driving a horse and buggy, the lady on the right being my mother Olga.
This article continues my account of life in Burragorang Valley.
The Valley walls
Here is a rustic scene featuring one of the many bluffs which lined the Cox and Wollondilly Valleys. The bluff reminds me of Mount Bimlow, which was a popular mountain for visitors to climb. I visited it after Warragamba Dam was built, by paddling across the upper reaches of the stored water on an inflatable rubber mattress. I did this on a two day trip with my friend Ian Olsen, who is a Journal reader.
We did this contrary to the rules of the Sydney Water Board, which banned visitors to the inner catchment area.
My experiences with the Burragorang area
Despite the rules of Sydney Water Board, over a period of ten years I was able to gain a very good picture of the Valley by exploring the catchments of the rivers, mostly on bushwalks, but by bicycle and inflatable mattress on two occasions.
Expert horsemen
The men in Burragorang Valley were expert horsemen, having started riding in their childhood. This was illustrated by Aubrey Carlon who was proud of racing against Sydney jockeys in the Valley. The Burragorang Cup saw him win by 10 lengths wearing a three piece suit, while the other jockeys were dressed in their silks. He was also an excellent boxer.
Droughts
The new settlers must have been dismayed by the 1838-1842 drought, the worst in recorded memory, rivalling even the 1938-42 drought. The normally reliable Cox and Wollondilly Rivers would have virtually dried up, and there was no rain to sustain the pastures.
Drowning
Here is a photo of horsemen crossing a river in the Valley, which I included in my previous article about Burragorang Valley. I have included it again because the height of the rocky slope on the far shore shows how high the floods reach, taking into account also that the trees at the top of the slope have been bent over by floodwater.
Although there were some deaths from bushfires more deaths occurred through drowning because the Cox and the Wollondilly Rivers could very quickly change from placid streams to raging torrents. However the real problem lay in the many river crossings which the settlers needed to negotiate, and the maintenance of their livelihood required that they had to accept risky situations. Many school teachers were lost through drowning because of inexperience and because they had obligations to reach their young charges.
One of the most noted Cox’s river identities to be drowned was Stewart Clarke, one of the most capable horsemen to come out of the Burragorang. He was drowned in 1929. His body was found by Mostyne Kill, who received a reward of five shillings from the Government for “finding a body”, on which he had to pay stamp duty of sixpence!
Great Flood of 1870
In the great flood of 1870 Michael Carlon aged eighteen had to seek refuge on an island on the Wollondilly River. “Two brave Aborigines”, George Riley and his brother Soloman went to the rescue in a bark canoe. Starting from Patrick’s Hill, the aborigines reached midstream when they were forced out by the force of the floodwaters. Soloman finally succeeded in reaching the island, where they stayed for two days before being finally rescued by other Aborigines in a bark canoe.
Prior to the construction of bridges in the Valley the council provided a free boating service to cross the rivers in times of flood but in 1911 they decided to charge six pence for each passenger carried.
The first house that Henry Dunn built at the junction of the Cox and the Wollondilly was on Brushy Island. During the 1870 flood the whole island went under. Mrs Dunn and the children spent the night in the ceiling and when the water went down they had only one cow left. All the fowls and other livestock were gone, but later one sow was found three miles away.
A near-tragedy occurred when the Hayes family in trying to get all the children to higher ground placed the baby Maurice in a basket, and with the water rising quickly the basket started to float off.
Stock driven to market
This is a photo of “Pansy” on the Camden-Campbelltown line, where it crossed the Hume Highway.
The Camden branch line was operated by the New South Wales Railways from 1882 to its closure in 1963.
The valley was dotted by a series of small settlements carrying out mixed farming typical of the time, where cattle, sheep and pigs were farmed for outside markets.
The settlers of the Wollondilly part of Burragorang had to walk their stock to market to the railhead, at Picton up to 1882, and after that more likely to Camden when the railway was extended there, a distance of up to 30 miles.
This was a two day trip for cattle and three or four days for pigs. Feed for the trip was usually taken in a sulky, and two drovers with the help of dogs. Once the pigs were loaded on goods wagons the dogs left for home and arrived long before the horsemen.
Wentworth Falls.
The settlers of the Cox’s River tributary of the Burragorang Valley usually went to Wentworth Falls. As well as avoiding the many river crossings, the distance was about 25 miles instead of the 40 miles to Camden.
It was normal practice for several farmers to make up a mob of pigs up to a total of 150 and drive them to Wentworth Falls via the Jump Back Pass to McMahons Lookout and then along King’s Tableland to Wentworth Falls. This was only a horse trail until 1891 when a road was put through. It took about 4 days, the first day involving a 1400 ft climb for the hapless porkers to a large pigsty.
When constructed the road was very steep and could only be used by carts. When cars were introduced they had to be towed up the steep sections by horses.
Pig-raising was carried out by all the farmers. Corn was fed to pigs because it did not need to be husked and shelled.
Rabbits were also a very palatable source of meat for pigs. After skinning the rabbits and pegging out the skin to dry the carcasses were boiled up in a 44 gallon drum.
Food
Every farm had at least one cow. Cows were milked so there was cream, butter and cheese. Poultry thrived, therefore there were plenty of meat and eggs for the table. A great variety of vegetables were grown, potatoes, pumpkins and squash being especially popular because of their keeping qualities.
Every farm had its own orchard with a wide selection of apples, stone and citrus fruits. The surplus fruit was either preserved or made into jam, chutney or pickles. Meat was only available when an animal was killed, and most families found it best to enter into a sharing arrangement with neighbours. In the early days wallaby and kangaroo meat was used but this declined with the passing of time.
Bread making
Bread making was one of the most important chores for the woman of the house. The dough was placed by the fire in a tin or a special doughbox and after it had risen sufficiently it was baked in the camp oven, shown in the above photo. The camp oven was by far the most important cooking utensil in pioneer homes-meat was roasted in it, and bread, cake and scones were baked in it.
Clay ovens were also used and made excellent breads.
Flour, one of the few essential items that had to be brought in, was necessarily purchased in bulk. If weevils became evident in the flour it was just put out in the sun and the weevils walked out.
Damper
Damper, the “bread of the bush” was always unleavened. As far back as 1827 the farm men made their flour into hot cakes, which they called damper and cooked in the ashes. Later dampers were made in camp ovens, shown in the above photo.
In the days when commercial yeast was not available a recipe had to be made up in a farm house kitchen. This included pouring boiling water on split or bruised peas and these were placed in a vessel on the hearth for 24 hours to allow the yeast to form.
By coincidence my wife Diane and I made dampers on a bushwalk in the Nattai part of the Valley.
Housing
Here is a photo of Maxwells Hut, probably on their “Bimlow” property below Mount Bimlow near the Cox’s-Wollondilly Junction.
We do not know much from an historical viewpoint about housing in the Valley, however in the 19th Century its development would have followed the normal progression for settlers from bark huts and slab huts to sawn-timber huts which I have described in my previous articles in the Jerrems Journals.
Maxwells Hut has an interesting mixture of methods of construction. The roof is made of bark and the walls are made of a mixture of sawn timber and split timber slabs. The fence is “post and rail” which was almost universally used in the Valley. This is an early photo because the Maxwells later expanded their property so that there was a small village comprising a mixture of building styles.
Photo of buggy and riders
Here is a photo of a high wheeled buggy and horse riders. The water is shallow and the river banks are low, showing that it is a side creek.
The backdrop of the river oaks and the steep hill side is typical of the side creeks which fed into the Cox’s River Valley, which was narrower than the Wollondilly Valley.
Red Hand Rock
Here is a photo of Red Hand Rock, which was on the Lower Wollondilly River near Brimstone Creek. The red hands can be seen on the left hand side of the overhang. The photo was probably taken in the late 1800s.
The “hands” are actually white, highlighted by red ochre which was blown on to hands placed on the rock. The drawings were protected from the weather by the overhang.
A similar technique was used in Red Hand Cave near Glenbrook, north of the Burragorang Valley.
Red ochre was commonly used in cave paintings. I have seen other examples of ochre stencils at Kanangra Walls to the west of Burragorang Valley.
Conclusion
I will conclude this article with this 1941 photo of two bushwalkers crossing a sedate river (probably the Cox’s River) with a typical backdrop of a cliff-lined scarp.
In a later article I will tell you about the lack of medical services available to settlers, and trace the development of boarding houses in the Valley.
