Ray provides us with a delightful story of the Burragorang Valley. Look at that picture of his father… very horsemanlike. Even the horse with ears perked up seems to be posing.
Here is a photo of a horseman, who readers might think was the legendary Man from Snowy River. Actually it was my father George Jerrems on holidays in the Burragorang Valley (west of Sydney in the Blue Mountains) in the 1930s before he was married.
The Valley was my father’s favourite holiday destination and he told me many stories about it. As a result I have always been fascinated about it, but have only been there once because it was flooded in the late 1950s by Warragamba Dam, and became Sydney’s major water supply.
My father was a keen horseman who stayed in guest houses in the valley or camped on the river flats.
The guest houses provided horses to their guests, keeping the best horses for good riders. My father told me that he had ridden a former racehorse in the valley, so it is possible that this is the horse in the photo. My father is riding in bare feet, indicating that he was very much at ease with the horse.
This article is about Burragorang Valley.
The Bushrangers’ Valley
Here is a photo of a painting of the Valley, showing the cliffs for which it was notable.
Naming this article “The Bushrangers Valley” is somewhat of a flight of fancy on my part because the Valley was only used as a bushranging hideout to a minor degree, but if I had been a bushranger in Australia’s colonial days and I was looking for a hideout it would have been my first choice. It had all the desirable aspects of being nestled in an isolated area which provided difficulties of access, but had a good water supply and fertile land.
On this theme, it is possible that Rolf Boldrewood, the author of the famous bushranging story “Robbery Under Arms”, based his story on Burragorang Valley.
Uncle Bill
Here is another photo of a painting showing a scene in Burragorang Valley, with a river lined with River Oaks in the foreground and a mountain in the background.
These paintings are by my Uncle Bill (Rubery Bennett). Uncle Bill married my Aunty Vi (nee Jerrems) and owned a small art gallery in Hunter Street in Sydney. Although he had trained in the early 1900s to be a landscape artist in the style of the famed Heidelburg School it was not until after the Great Depression that he could afford to specialise in painting.
Uncle Bill often visited Burragorang and prior to the construction of Warragamba Dam in the mid 1950s was commissioned by the Sydney Water Board to paint a number of typical scenes.
Location of Burragorang Valley
Here is a sketch map showing the location of Burragorang Valley. The storage of Warragamba Dam is shown with hatching.
Burragorang Valley is surrounded by extensive sandstone cliffs carved out of the Blue Mountains by the Wollondilly River which rises in the Goulburn area to the south west, the Cox’s River which rises near Lithgow to the west, and the smaller Nattai River which rises near Mittagong to the south. These rivers all flow through the Blue Mountains and, whilst in the Lower Blue Mountains, converge to form the Warragamba River, on which Warragamba Dam is now situated.
The lower parts of these rivers formed the Burragorang Valley.
Access to the Valley was made difficult by
(a) The downstream Warragamba River Gorge which prevented access from the east
(b) The sandstone scarp on the south side
(c) A similar scarp on the north side, and
(d) Deep gorges on the west side.
My first experience of Burragorang Valley
Here is another photo of a typical scene in the Valley, showing farm houses and a typical backdrop of cliffs.
My first experience of the valley was in 1956, with my family. We drove down the steep access road to the bottom, only to find that the river was in flood. We camped overnight in a deserted cottage, but the next morning a nearby timber bridge was still flooded so we abandoned the trip.
Sadly, we did not return in time to continue our trip because the Water Board had closed the roads.
Discovery of the Valley
In 1802 Governor King sent Francis Barrallier, an officer in the New South Wales Army Corps, to try to find a way across the Blue Mountains towards the south west. Presumably Governor King nominated this direction because attempts to cross the Blue Mountains by a westerly route had been up to that date unsuccessful, and eventually only came to fruition eleven years later.
Barrallier made several journeys from his depot near the Nattai River. He seems to have then travelled west for quite a distance, although his journal entries are somewhat confusing, there being at least eight different published guesses about his route. In terms of the degree to which his travels have bamboozled historians Barrallier takes the proverbial cake!
Kanangra Walls
Here is a photo of Kanangra Walls, which some historians believe Barrallier tried to climb.
At least it seems clear that Barrallier at least ventured into, if he did not actually cross, the Nattai-Wollondilly River system which forms the Burragorang Valley.
However there is a further twist in the puzzle, revolving around the fact that Barrallier was accompanied by four soldiers and five convicts. It is believed by the compilers of the Australian Dictionary of Biography that one of the convicts was my wife’s ancestor Joseph Wild!
Governor Macquarie visits the Valley
In October 1815 the energetic Governor Macquarie visited the Nattai River, a tributary of the lower Wollondilly, by scrambling down a steep side creek. Here is part of his account of his visit, demonstrating that he had his priorities correct:
“We were all very much fatigued by the time we got to the River and therefore rested there for an hour, where we had each a Glass of Cherry Brandy and a Biscuit to refresh us; Major Antill having carried with him a Pint Bottle of this good stuff.”
One writer later described Burragorang as “Some of the most wild and most magnificent scenery…not only in this colony…but also in the world” (“The Valley of Burragorang”, Town and Country Journal 1877 p400).
Land release in Burragorang Valley
Here is a placid river scene showing canoeists, River Oaks and a dramatic backdrop of steep hills.
The first official land user (albeit an absentee landowner) in Burragorang Valley was TC Harington in 1823.
Robert Dixon surveyed the area in 1827.
Access to the Valley
Governor Macquarie’s route was impractical for general access, so over a period of years attempts were made to find better routes.
In November 1824 the surveyor Robert Hoddle followed a route down Burragorang Mountain, possibly discovered by Harington and subsequently known as Hoddles Track. Indeed Hoddle described the descent as “steep and dangerous” and on his return journey he described it as “ä very dangerous and steep ascent. My baggage Horse had nearly been killed and was much bruised by falling down the mountain at least 20 yards…”.
New route found
In about 1830 a new route (a bridle track) was cut down “The Bluff” further downstream. The pass was known as the Jump Up , because the broken nature of the route through the cliffline in one particular spot obliged the four-legged travellers to do some fancy footwork. One early traveller (JS Hassall) recounted that when he originally descended the route (which was later improved slightly) “We had to let the horses down partly by a rope, to prevent them falling over a precipice alongside us, three or four feet off, and I too had to submit to be lowered by a rope”.
.
Bridle tracks
Here is an early photo of horsemen crossing a river before roads were later constructed.
A major problem for early settlers in the valley was obtaining access to the villages outside the valley, like Oakdale, to obtain provisions and materials. Bridle tracks were limited in their capacity by their narrow width, which only allowed horses to travel in single file. Large items had to be dismantled and carried in on packhorses or slid down the hillside. Stock like cattle had to be escorted along the track. Similarly, farm produce intended for sale had to be carried out on horseback.
This was not uncommon in the 19th century, in my bushwalking career I often found traces of old bridle tracks used by farmers and miners.
The first two bullock drays to be brought into the valley were “let down over the mountain side, piece by piece, with ropes”. Patrick Carlon’s solution was to construct his own cart in the valley.
An indication of the practical limitations placed on users of the bridle track was that it took James Macarthur and some of his shepherds two days to get a large flock of a thousand odd sheep up the track.
Although it would be unthinkable these days for settlers to survive with such restrictions on their ability to bring in supplies or take out produce it should be remembered that the Burragorang settlers were largely self-sufficient.
The first road into Burragorang Valley
Shown in this very early photograph is a bullock waggon laboriously ascending the steep-sided road.
It was not until 1870 that a road of sorts was constructed. However the man who opened it, E. Du Faur, described it as “ät best a bullock dray road”. It was not until 1901 that the Government Works Department built a better road.
The need for such a road was accentuated by the number of settlers in the valley, cedargetters, and also the opening of mines at Yerranderie where the population had reached over 1000 in the early 1900s.
The second road into Burragorang Valley
Here is a dramatic photo of Claude Jenkins’s Service Car (a Buick 6) on the access road built in 1901, taken in 1923. The vehicle has stopped at The Bluff to let the lady passengers look over the side. It is interesting to see that the road is barely wide enough to let vehicles pass each other. The photo also demonstrates the amount of rock that had to be removed to accommodate the road.
On the sharp “blind” bends vehicles sounded their horns to warn oncoming vehicles of their approach.
Tragedy on the new road
Tragically, as a reminder of the dangerous nature of the road, the year after the photo of the ladies was taken Patrick Joseph Carlon (1844-1924) was killed on his way to a family reunion in the Valley. Patrick Joseph and his son Victor were to stay overnight in Camden on their way to a Burragorang Valley reunion but the older man insisted on continuing on as he was anxious to meet his brothers and relatives. As they came around the last corner the truck hit a large rock and went over the cliff. Victor walked away uninjured, but the old man was unconscious and remained in a coma for some days until he died.
Conclusion
I will tell you more about Burragorang Valley in a future article.
From our Jerrems Journal Archives
Thanks to Ray for encapsulating all previous editions; it was a time consuming project.
Here is one from the archives. Full version on the website link above.
=========================
JJ# November 2005
Jerrems Miscellaneous . Article about “Dan’s Jacket” ( Dan Jerrems ). Anonymous review of “Dark Odyssey” starring Jeanne Jerrems (Dan’s
mother). Col.photo of jacket. Evocative tribute to late Liam Jerrems by his brother
Jesse. Trivia (Jerrems Spur, Thomas William Jerrems’s ratio of daughters to sons).
