Sydney Morning Herald 26 June 1857

THE GOLD-FIELDS OF NEW SOUTH WALES.

BACK TO SYDNEY.

FROM OUR SPECIAL COMMISSIONER

No. 10.

ON leaving the Hanging Rock, I started thence with the intention of crossing the country to Mudgee, and to this end I proceeded by Gunnoo Gunnoo, to the head station of the Peel River Mining Company, to Paddy Davis', and from that to Breeza, a small town-ship of some five houses at the foot of the Collaroy Mountain, and on the western side of the Mookie River. The rain had fallen in torrents for two nights prior to my arrival here, and the road, or rather the bush, for road there was none, between Davis' and Breeza, was in a most extraordinary compound state of water and mud, making progression difficult and somewhat singular. The singularity consisted in this that the horse s foot on being placed to the ground would take up a coat of mud of a very unctious adhesive nature, and that the next step would give a coating of dry straws picked up from the roots of the luxuriant grass that grew around up to the horse's belly. Thus each step would give an alternate layer of mud and grass, until gradually the animal was raised some six inches above his ordinary altitude, the masses getting wider and wider, and gradually assuming such dimensions that at last their own weight would cause them to drop off, in one lump, from one foot or the other. As this happened sometimes to one foot only, and some-times to two, but seldom to the whole four feet at once, I leave it to any gentleman accustomed to equestrian exercise, whether riding under such circumstances would not be, as I have said, a very singular mode of progression. Breeza possesses an inn, a store and post-office, and three houses, business unknown. The inn is a miserable sample of the country hostelry, built of pine from the adjoining mountain, and buried in mud. I was glad, for my horse's sake as well as my own, to get away in the morning, for the only fodder for the poor beast was dried bush grass, of most unnutritious appearance. Crossing the Mookie (it ought to be written as it is pronounced -- Mucky for such mucky, muddy bed and banks did I never before see to any river), I skirted its banks for some eight or ten miles, my direction for travelling being to make for the point of a belt of wood bordering the plain on the other side of the river, and thence across the plain to Collyblu Mountain, then directly in front of me. Following these directions with great exactness, sometimes up to the horse's knees in water, and at others travelling on the muddy pits I have described, I reached the bank of the river where I ought to have crossed, but to my utter astonishment, I found the stream that only some three hours before I had passed so easily, now running down bank high. Though I travelled several miles up and down the river, nothing at all like a favourable crossing-place presented itself, and I had no inclination for giving myself a gipsy tint, by taking a bath in the pea-soupy waters of the Mookie. Besides, had I been ever so willing, my horse, a knowing old grey who, in his career as a stock horse, had evidently acquired a vast fund of bush experience, at once put his veto upon the attempt, by most resolutely refusing even to approach the banks of the stream. Under such circumstances, I held a council, in the Indian style, by seating myself on a log in a dry spot, and lighting my pipe. A retreat upon Breeza was cut off, a thing I was not sorry for, when I remembered the numerous companions delit that I had the night previously, and though Collyblu stood invitingly in front of me, all advance was prevented in that direction. With the last puff of smoke from my exhausted pipe, came a brilliant idea -- I would return to Sydney, and then to Mudgee by the Western Road. This opinion was at once acted upon, and through water and mud and over hills, I hurried downward, reaching Maitland in three days, and Sydney on the fourth, from leaving Breeza. I was deluded into taking the road in preference to the rail to Parramatta, by the kindness of a friend who informed me that

"it would be really worth your while to go up that road."

So up that road I went, but saw nothing but one dreary waste of mud, where once had been one of the finest, if not THE finest, macadamised roads in the country. From Parramatta to Penrith, I splashed my way through mud and rain, the one requiring all my attention to pilo: my steed, the other totally confining the range of vision to the fences or few houses that here and there bordered the road. Penrith seemed to me, so far as I had opportunity of looking at it, very much the same, as it wag when I saw it ten years back. It is a neat place enough in fine weather, but was then half under water, and the other half under mud, and of course under such circumstances looked neither comfortable nor pretty. The next morning, the weather was fine when I started, though the heavy clouds that hung around seemed to threaten mischief at no very distant period. Crossing the bridge over the Nepean and paying six- pence for the privilege to a shoeless urchin who swung himself down from an overhanging fence to take it from me, and then spit upon it for luck, I crossed Emu Plains, and commenced the ascent of Lapstone Hill. Many a tourist, many a newspaper scribe have gone before me on this route, and have described the frowning rocks that overhang the roadway on the one side, and the dark precipitous gullies that descend abruptly from it on the other; and consequently it would be a needless task on my part to attempt to draw a picture of this vast work of former days -- even if I were able. As it happens, however, I can do nothing of the kind; for, as if out of spite to me, I being exceedingly anxious to see some of the magnificent views that ore to be behold from different points of the route, Dame Nature drew a dark watery curtain before my eyes and cut me off from an inspection of anything but the rolling mists that came seething up from the depths below -- like -- like -- like some weekly washing day in. Pandemonium -- if ever such a thing occurs there. Looking down all was cloud rolling and twisting in untiring convolutions, whilst here and there the tree tops would now become visible, and now be lost in vapour as the watery curtain moved and shifted in its increasing course. The opposite hills were dim and indistinct, looking even farther off than they were from the uncertain view obtained of them; and the whole thing put together, with the fine rain and cold driving wind that found out all the button holes and crevices of one's dress, through which to torment the traveller, made one of the most grand and uncomfortable pictures that a graphic writer could well depict. Much time or opportunity was not however given me to look about me, for I had to pick my way very carefully, the mud in the road-way being up to the horse's knees, and through this, in some places, even the horseman is compelled to go; and so bad was the travelling that I thought I had done exceedingly well, when, after a long day's journeying, I found I had got over five and twenty miles of ground. I slept that night at an inn in about as bleak a spot as could have been well selected; and thanks to a broken pane of glass in my bedroom, found myself addressing everybody in a whisper, my voice having dwindled down to a most attenuated thread of sound. Through rain and mud the next day, I pushed along doggedly, being blessed, however, with one temporary gleam of sunshine just as I reached Mount Victoria, by which I was afforded a glance at the beautiful Vale of Clwyd. The mountains here, instead of coming down steeply and abruptly, as on their eastern face, take long graceful sweeps into the valley. On the more level ground farms are scattered here and there, the recently tilled land, looking either jet black or emerald green, as the sowing had been recent or otherwise; whilst through the trees, thinned out and of small growth, the cattle are seen dotted here and there, and giving a rural air to the picture. Down the face of the mount, and along the edge of the valley, the road descends almost in a straight line, seeming to terminate in what appears in the distance, a beautiful little English looking village, but which, on a closer acquaintance, becomes a mass of mud. This is the village of little Hartley, but why Little I do not know, for it is about three times the size of Hartley proper. Hartley is situated a few miles further on, in the hollow, formed by a confused mass of stiff hills. The selection of the ground seems to have been made with a view to the convenience of persons building, as with a two-storied building, the inhabitants might walk out of the first or. second story indiscriminately, the ground being so steep that a house of ordinary depth would have its basement level with the street, and the first floor on a line with the hill at its back -- or, vice versa, if the house faced the hill. Hartley contains some dozen houses, one of which is the court-house, one the lock-up, and four are public-houses. There is about a mile and a-half of good granite road here, -- but the traveller pays for it, by having immediately, after leaving it, to wade through about eighteen inches of mud for some three or four miles. At Bowenfels, about six miles beyond Hartley, the Mudgee Road branches off to the right from the Bathurst line. From here to Barnaby's Inn, at the Round Swamp, I had unceasing rain, and thus lost the magnificent view that is to be had of the surrounding country from the summit of what is termed the Crown Ridge, one of the highest points in this part of the country, and the head source of the Turon, the Cudgegong, and the Meroo rivers.