by Richard Cox
This soaking, dispiriting weather persisted all week. William only noted the days which were Sundays, perhaps in obeisance to what ought to have been times of rest. On 21 November thunder and rain began at 10 am ‘and continued the whole day, at times very heavy. Only four hours work done.’ He issued all hands a gill of spirits each. The next day was a bit better and the men continued despite light rain and heavy fogs. They turned out a great many rocks, blowing up one in descending the mountain. ‘The ground as we dig discovers many more rocks than we expected.’ November 23 brought ‘a very cold wind, east south east’, though the weather did clear up. William tackled his re-supply problems by sending ‘two carts to Emu Plains, with three horses, and the sergeant and two men to bring a load of flour from Martin’s. Sent Gorman with them, and he took six weeks provisions for two of the soldiers that are to be left at the first depot.’
That same day the supervisor Tye was sent with a soldier and a labourer ‘to re-mark the trees from the second rivulet to the Fish River, a distance of 20 miles [32 km] from hence’ to the west and given directions to return by a ridge of high land ‘that bears as we suppose, from within three miles of the Fish River back to Mount Blaxland, it being my wish to make the road on that line, if practicable’. From the river to Mount Blaxland was ten miles. That this relatively minor exploration was not going to be easy is underlined by the men being given a week’s rations.
When they returned on the evening of 27 November they brought rock cod that they had caught with them, but it rained constantly and the river waters were so high that they had been unable to follow the ridge. They had to come back the way they had gone, through hilly country considered unsuitable for a road, although that had to be the route eventually taken, passing just to the south of Blaxland’s mountain. Confusingly, William’s journal entry for 3 December also has Tye and the soldier returning on that day and reporting that ‘we cannot go on either of the ridges pointed out, and that we must cross the valley by Blaxland’s mountain’. Possibly Tye, who made a series of probing expeditions for William, had been sent a second time. They were now at the Great Dividing Range.
During Tye’s absence work had continued on the rocky descent from Mount York, as did the rain. ‘It mizzled,’ William recorded, using an evocative Middle English word for drizzle which has sadly fallen out of use. The men were turning out ‘an immense quantity of rock, which was very handsomely veined, very like marble’. They were issued with more shoes and trousers. The bullocks disappeared and had to be searched for. Although work was progressing further ahead at the river bridge down below, progress on the descent of Mount York was slow.
On 26 November William wrote that: ‘We have been fortunate in turning out very large solid rocks 2ft. thick without breaking them, and we have used but little powder this week’. To add to this annoyance the bullocks had ‘not been seen these 10 days. Sent Lewis after them and found them up a valley three miles away.’ But at least the carpenter had ‘got 100 posts split and 200 rails for fencing the road down the mountain’. William certainly made his free men supervisors work, for which they were well rewarded at the end with grants of land. The next day a team of the errant bullocks was sent off to bring provisions from Emu Plains, after their harnesses had been repaired. A man named Finch, who was very ill, travelled as a passenger in the cart.
The labour force was still divided between the road down the mountain and the first river bridge, with greater progress around the bridge, albeit at the cost of much effort. On 28 November two very welcome 336 pound casks of flour arrived from Emu Ford and a good day’s work was done. The stonemason completed the rock work a little below the bridge. ‘It has cost us 10 blasts of powder and great labour to get rid of it.’ On 29 November the bridge approach was reinforced with a tree trunk so massive that its mere size was a major challenge. ‘Got a tree,’ William wrote, ‘55 ft. long and 9 ft. in circumference by the men in the woods into his [sic] place as a side piece below the bridge … Men stuck very hard picking and grubbing the rocks and forming the road.’ The next day four were on the sick list. On 1 December Hobby and Lewis ‘again examined the river to find a proper place for a [second] bridge that can be got at from the main ridge we discovered about two miles from the valley below. They found two places and marked back the best one.’
A week earlier William had been intensely aggravated when the government teams bringing supplies reached Emu Ford but refused to swim the bullocks across, because of the height of the river, unless they had a written order from himself. One can imagine him fuming, especially when, after searching for a government horse, his men were unable to find one and on 3 December he had to send the long-suffering Gorman on foot for the 50 miles to Emu Ford with the order. That same Saturday he had the men working hard on what he called the ‘second circle’ down the mountain (as explained above, the steepness of the descent forced the road to be made in a serious of half-circles). The sick list included a man with scurvy, probably for fear of which William had earlier given them cabbages.
On 4 December they were close to success with the mountain road. William recorded that his caravan was taken down the mountain ‘by men, the road not being finished sufficient for horses or cattle to draw on it’. Once down there again himself – and doubtless very relieved to have the caravan available – he ‘removed about two miles to where there is water. The bullock cart took the provisions etc forward [how the cart was got there is not explained]. Went on to the river and fixed on the spot to make the first bridge.’ He had noticed ‘a most beautiful ridge, near three miles long, that leads direct to the spot [on the Coxs River]’, although he could not see any timber fit for it. There was also second lesser river, the River Lett, as an obstruction.
The horses ‘were brought back by Sullivan and two others, who were given the promised reward – half a pint of spirits’. William also issued a gill of spirits each to all hands. It rained all night. 5 December was no better with sleet, hail, thunder and lightning. But 6 December dawned clear and he removed after breakfast with the caravan, horse and bullock cart to the junction of the two rivers (where the River Lett flowed into the Cox) and decided that the obstacles to making one bridge were so great that he would make a bridge over each.
So, on 8 December, after dealing briskly with a variety of logistical problems of transport and provisions, William ‘Left 12 men to finish the road down the mountain, under charge of R. Lewis’, while another 12 laboured on the section between the mountain and the river, which they finished that evening. That day William also made a momentous decision in terms of marking his progress. He changed his point of reference for calculating distances, making reconciling them with his account difficult. Presumably he reckoned that he was roughly halfway. ‘Measured down the mountain to the valley to the fiftieth mile from the ford,’ he wrote. ‘Here I drop this reckoning and commence from the 50th mile to [towards] the west.’ His quoted distances are further confused by references both to rivulets and the River Lett. However, Campbell’s observations make it evident that, having got down the mountain at about 45 miles from Emu Ford, the next major bridge was over the Cox River, some 10 miles of track across hill and vale further on, as already mentioned.
The journal’s descriptions of these various rivers, which as yet had no names except for the Fish River, are confusing. The first major bridge was near the top of the mountain, whereas the next bridges and the two rivulets – where William’s horse had become stuck in a bog on 20 November and he got wet through – were below on the forest ground. He ‘fixed on a spot over each [rivulet] as being less trouble and more convenient than making one bridge over the river’. Furthermore the ascent from the possible single bridging place was ‘much steeper and worse ground for a road’. By the time the road was finished 12 bridges had been laboriously constructed.
Again the Governor’s secretary was later able to give the route a perspective denied to William. The route of the road ran past the junction of the River Lett and Coxs River
, close to present day Glenroy, then just south of Mount Blaxland and westward to cross the Fish River, eventually turning north to Bathurst. Campbell wrote: ‘A range of very lofty hills and narrow valleys alternately form the tract of country from Cox’s river, for a distance of 16 miles, until the Fish River is arrived at; and the stage between these rivers is consequently very severe and oppressive on the cattle’. This route had been thought unsuitable at first. Macquarie described it as having ‘numerous steep ascents and Descents the whole way’. It ran quite a long way south of the present Great Western Highway and was to be frequently realigned, the first notable change being in 1823, taking it north of Mount Blaxland, with a major change in 1832. But as yet, on 9 December, William had not crossed the river that Macquarie named after him.
During that day of 9 December, the men had laboured intensively before breakfast on a bridge across the River Lett. At 9 am William ‘took all hands to the second bridge, and before dinner got one of the side pieces, 45 ft. long fixed in its place without accident’. The other side piece was created by felling a tree across the river, ‘about 60 ft. long’. Shifting such timber on a river bank would have involved intense effort and several of the men seemed to be inclined to give in and shirk work, ‘the greater part of whom, in my opinion, are quite as well as myself’. William gave them a ‘reproof in earnest’, expecting it to ‘make them all well by tomorrow’. In the army a reproof in earnest meant having a cat-o-nine tails hung outside the offender’s tent, a salutary reminder of possible punishment. No such sanction existed here, but the reproof worked, since the men had their freedom at stake.
The trouble seems to have begun with an act of kindness to a convict. On 5 December William wrote to the Reverend Cartwright on the Emu Plains asking him to ‘send two of the gaol gang to cut and house Tindall’s wheat at the Nepean. He has a large family and it is his all.’ This was the same Tindall who Bigge later claimed had not laboured on the road at all. Now he ‘could not allow himself to go in, as many others would fancy they were entitled to the same indulgence’. Nonetheless it may have caused resentment. Possibly as a result, in the ensuing days William quite frequently dispensed practical rewards in the shape of half pints or else gills of spirits, as when men had been labouring half the day in the water of the river. He often became very fatigued himself, which was hardly surprising. He was like a circus ringmaster trying to control two arenas at the same time: the recalcitrant road down the mountain and the perilous approaches to the river that later bore his name.
On 11 December William sent six men back to complete the mountain road and ten forward to camp at Blaxland’s mountain, while he set out on horseback with Lewis and Hobby ‘to examine the ground for a road’ as far as the Fish River, 16 miles beyond the Coxs River, through which they must have waded. They found that after passing the distinctive sugarloaf hill of Mount Blaxland on their right they had to ascend a high and rising ridge which was ‘very unfavourable for a road’. William then tried to return via Evans’ route and found it ‘impracticable even for a horse’. He noted that ‘the hills to the west, north and south are extremely high and difficult of access’. In the end he was forced to make his road past Blaxland’s hill. He got back at sunset, ‘much fatigued and disappointed’.
Encouragingly, William found the land here was favourable for grazing, but ‘hills to the west, north and south are extremely high and difficult of access’. Along this section to the Fish River Macquarie later named three hills as Mount Blaxland (already called that by Evans), Wentworth’s Sugar Loaf and Lawson’s Sugar Loaf, honouring the hardships of their expedition, ‘the severity of which labour had seriously affected their healths’. It affected William’s too. Those explorations may sound blundering to a modern traveller. But in such a tangle of virgin scrub and timber William often had a job literally to see where he was heading, even with the aid of a compass.
William’s ‘reproof in earnest’ of 9 December was effective. The next day the men had ‘finished the bridge over the east branch [i.e., rivulet], 22 ft. long, 13 ft. wide. Carpenters etc, made a good strong job of it.’ In the days through to 14 December work on the bridges continued, despite thunderstorms and some men having to work standing in the water, for which they were again rewarded with a gill of spirits. At the same time, William was all too aware of the uncompleted job of the road down the mountain. At 6 am on 11 December, another Sunday in the long march of working weekends, his order was carried out for ‘six married men to go back to the mountain to finish the road down it to the valley. When done they are to be discharged.’ The six included Tindall, who had been so anxious about his harvest on the Nepean. Again this demonstrated William’s considerable skills at man management, giving willing workers the immediate reward of discharge, with emancipation sure to follow, and so re-motivating the rest, although he risked causing resentment.
The next two days saw six men working ‘nearly all day’ in the river. William gave the men a gill of spirits each after they had ‘Got a good day’s work done’. In the evening of 12 December there was ‘a violent thunderstorm, with wind, lightning and heavy rain, which lasted until 9 o’clock’. The men can hardly have been much drier in their bark shelters than in the river. The contrast with the dry weather and drought when Macquarie made his tour of inspection barely five months later was extraordinary.
Further efforts were made to bring supplies forward from the mountain, while work was well ahead in working the road around Blaxland’s mountain. Then, on 15 December came the moment William had so long been waiting for. ‘At 1 p.m. one of the party at the mountain came to report they had finished their task. Sent Lewis back to examine it, and found it completed.’ There is no hint of celebration in the diary, even though it had taken since 18 July – all but five months – to get there. William simply noted the fulfilment of his promise: ‘Gave them their discharge (six men), and sent a cart with them as far as the Nepean, to carry their bedding’. The dismissed men’s feelings of relief can be imagined.
With the mountain conquered, the project really could forge ahead. On 16 December a sergeant was sent back to bring the tools used on the mountain, while the bridge across the west branch of the river was finished. Again a massive tree trunk was indispensable as a side piece. It was ‘an oak tree, with a girth of 9 ft. at least 6 ft. above where it was fallen, and was [a] good 50 ft. long. I never saw such a tree of that sort before … The carpenter worked remarkably well while at this job.’ Next day they broke up their quarters at this bridge and moved forward to where Hobby was superintending work on smaller bridges. William ‘selected 14 men to go forward road-making’. There must by now have been a feeling amongst the teams that they were near the end, despite the daily rains and storms.
On the Sunday, 18 December, William enjoyed a pleasant al fresco Sunday lunch with Hobby, Tye and three others, when they ‘caught some fish, and dined on the banks of the river’. Here he fixed on a possible line of road ‘except going up the hill, which must be avoided, if possible’. This was Blaxland’s mountain, on the side of which Hobby’s team had been working. Happily the next day William ‘Found a way to avoid the high hill … and marked the ground for a road’ despite a violent thunderstorm at 3 pm. They returned three hours later to find that Lewis ‘had brought the bullocks forward’. The following day was ‘extremely clear and hot’, with a violent afternoon thunderstorm.
A curious episode now erupted, again perhaps symptomatic of exhaustion, on the Tuesday when William ordered the sergeant (Kelly) to take back a man named J. Allen, who had been very ill for some days. ‘To my surprise he made such frivolous objections as I did not like … said neither his horse or himself had shoes; but if he was ordered he must go.’ It was an unwise underling who refused orders from William. The Parramatta cart was promptly ordered to take the sick man back to the Nepean and the sergeant was sent off at dawn next day to the first depot to relieve a corporal with written instructions ‘for his guidance there’. History does not tell us whether
the sergeant was demoted, but it seems likely. William did not take kindly to insubordination.
Christmas was rapidly approaching, and with it more thunderstorms and daily rain, often extremely heavy. It was proving to be an exceptionally wet season, which swelled the waters in a succession of small rivers over which bridges had to be constructed, although there was a drought on the far side of the range. Both bridges (near Glenroy) were completed on 21 December. Two days later William sent a progress report to the Governor, and being without the Parramatta team, had to get timber for the last six bridges cut by the men with him. He recorded ‘we are now at 15½ miles’ – presumably this was from the 50 mile mark – but on 24 December he quoted the total distance as 90 miles and added: ‘Went forward this afternoon to ascertain if I could get my caravan with safety to the Fish River’. He succeeded in doing this on Christmas Day. On 24 December they ‘Finished a very good bridge at 1 o’clock. Went on after dinner half a mile, and began another bridge.’ One can sense the impetus, even in William’s purely factual writing.
On Christmas Day William recorded that they had ‘three bridges to make and five miles of road’. Possibly he had now established the line of road for a total of 90 miles, though his subsequent entry for 27 December suggests that he had not. It being Christmas Day, he ‘issued to the men a gill of spirits and a new shirt each’. He now fixed on a spot to cross the Fish River, though the timber ‘appears to be bad and scarce about here. Cannot find any for sawing.’ Traces of the bridge are still visible.
On 26 December William sent back to Clarendon ‘for a good cart horse, to prevent delay after we cross the river’. The forge was erected ‘to repair the tools, they being much out of order’. The next day, ‘At 9.00 a.m. crossed the river for the first time with Mr. Hobby, J. Tye and a soldier … to ascertain the best place for a road’. William noted that ‘the grass in this valley was the best and thickest on the ground I have yet seen in this colony’. They ‘saw six kangaroos, a flock of 11 emus, wild ducks and pigeons, but for want of dogs killed none. At 6 p.m. returned and reached the river quite tired.’ From this description the land beyond the Fish River was a grazier’s paradise. The Governor’s secretary, Campbell, gave a parallel impression. He wrote that the land beyond the river to the Sidmouth Valley ‘abounds with a great variety of herbs and plants, such as would probably interest and gratify the scientific colonist’.