Three Expeditions into the Interior of Eastern Australia, Volume 1: With Descriptions of the Recently Explored Region of Australia Felix, and of the Present Colony of New South WalesMitchell, T. L. (Thomas Livingstone)
History
Three Expeditions into the Interior of Eastern Australia, Volume 1: With Descriptions of the Recently Explored Region of Australia Felix, and of the Present Colony of New South Wales
Mitchell, T. L. (Thomas Livingstone)
Australia -- Discovery and exploration; Mitchell, T. L. (Thomas Livingstone), 1792-1855
The inconvenience of a want of plan for roads and streets is strikingly
obvious at Bathurst. A vast tract had indeed been reserved as a township,
but then, no streets having been laid out, allotments for building could
neither be obtained by grant nor purchase. The site for the town was
therefore only distinguished by a government house, jail, courthouse,
postoffice, and barracks; while the population had collected in 60 or 80
houses built in an irregular manner on the Sydney side of the river, and
at the distance of a mile from the intended site of the town. The
consequence of a want of arrangement became equally apparent in the line
of approach to the township, for the only road in use being very
indirect, and passing through a muddy hollow, named The Bay of Biscay,
could not be altered because the adjacent land had been granted to
individuals. Thus when the good people of Bathurst prayed in petitions
for delivery from their Bay of Biscay, and a dry and more direct line for
the road had been easily found and marked out, the irregular buildings
and private property lay in the way of the desired improvement. All these
inconveniences might have been obviated by due attention to such
arrangements in the first instance, when any plan was practicable;
whereas subsequently it has been found possible to remedy them only in a
limited degree. The streets having now been laid out a church and many
houses are in course of erection and a new road, leading over firm ground
to the site of the intended bridge, has been opened with the consent of
the owner of the property.
SMALLFARMERS.
Part of the reserved land of the township has been given to
smallfarmers--a class very essential to the increase of population, but
by no means numerous in New South Wales, and least of all at Bathurst,
where the land is laid out chiefly in large sheep farms.
INTENDED BRIDGE.
A bridge across the Macquarie has long been a desideratum. This river,
although in common seasons fordable, and in dry seasons scarcely fluent,
is liable, after heavy falls of rain in the mountains, to rise suddenly
to a great height, and cut off the communication between the public
buildings on the one side, and the peopled suburbs and great road from
Sydney on the other. The country beyond the Macquarie affords excellent
sheep-pasturage, the hills consisting chiefly of granite. A number of
respectable colonists are domiciled on the surrounding plains, and the
society of their hospitable circle presents a very pleasing picture of
pastoral happiness and independence.
DEPARTURE FROM BATHURST.
April 4.
It was not until two o'clock that I could conclude my correspondence with
the road-making, land-measuring world, and join a very agreeable party,
assembled by my friend Rankin, to partake of an early dinner and witness
my departure.
CHARLEY BOOTH.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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