TheBanyanTree: Australian names

[Peter Macinnis]

A few things have sorted themselves out in my life, so I am off to 
pursue John Oxley.  He took months to travel my route in 1818, I will do 
it in a Monday to Friday whizz.  Get your Australian map out, and you 
may be able to follow.

Monday I put a tent and a sleeping bag, an esky of basic food, clothes 
and other stuff and head off early in the morning, over the mountains to 
Bathurst, with a quick visit to their regional museum.  It took the 
early settlers 27 years to get over the Blue Mountains and to establish 
that town, I will do it in a few hours.

Then it's on past Mount Canobolas and Orange, Molong and on to Dubbo, 
Narromine and Trangie, then stop at Nevertire (nice pub, and I'll be 
tired by then) around to Warren and out to on the road to Billybingbone, 
but I will stop at Mount Harris, a mountain in name, in reality a 
120-foot hill, but the old explorers used it, and said they could see it 
from 70 miles away.  I will test that on Wednesday.  It was named after 
a surgeon who used to go exploring for fun, and who was very good at 
patching up people when they got speared. He patched the governor in 
1790, and on the coast, he patched William Blake.

I will probably spend Monday night at Gulargambone or Gilgandra, but by 
Tuesday morning I will be in the Warrumbungles, old volcanic remnants 
near Coonabarabran, where I will stay Tuesday and Wednesday nights.  I 
will probably use motels, but I will be equipped to switch around . . .

I should have time on Tuesday to explore the Pilliga scrub where Oxley 
got lost, and I may get to Goorianawa and Teridgerie, or to Narrabri and 
Boggabri.

There is a large observatory here, but it is not on my list, this time. 
Instead, I will be off up Mount Exmouth on the Wednesday, though the 
name signs may well tell me it is now Wambelong.  Whatever its name, 
Oxley climbed it under the name Exmouth to spy out the country, then 
headed for the coast, past Gunnedah, Tamworth (boo!) and Walcha to Mount 
Seaview (hiss!), where he must have discerned something or other to Port 
Macquarie, where some of my family stopped briefly, 170 years ago.

Going up and down Wambelong will take all day on Wednesday -- I will 
probably fall in with some other walkers, which will suit me fine, but 
when I get to the top, I should be able to see Mount Harris.  I have a 
compass so I can check Oxley's bearings, but the rock is magnetic, so I 
may have to work at it.  If I fall off something, the motel will know to 
send out a search party, but I am not planning to fall off things.

I will cross the mountains of the Great Dividing Range, as we proudly 
call the hillocks that run along, parallel to the coast, on the 
Thursday, staying somewhere, maybe taking a side trip into the Oxley 
Wild Rivers National Park, then down past Coopernook, Taree, Bulahdelah 
and back to Balgowlah and home.

Whatever else, I will enjoy the names, but tomorrow, I go to buy the 
detailed maps for wanders away from the car -- and that will be almost 
as much fun.  Of course, once I get home, I can get the maps out and 
travel the route again.  I am laying in a store of maps and travel now, 
against old age. So long as I have those, I need not be house-bound, 
ever.  It's the names that make the magic.

peter

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   _--|\    Peter Macinnis, Manly, the birthplace of Australian surfing
  /     \   feral word herder, also herbal remedies, bespoke fish
  \.--._*<--hooks, umbrellas mended and budgerigar requisites
       v    http://members.ozemail.com.au/~macinnis/index.htm