The Great Western Road IN THE LATE eighteen thirties the old road from Buninyong to the Pyrenees range was merely a bush track, with all its twists and turns always pointed north west. The man, or men, who rode point looking for water, feed and easier going creek crossings, water courses, or hill tracks showed the instinct belonging to our finest bushmen. Even now, one is amazed at the skill shown. At the time of the gold rushes, between the years 1851 and 1861, thousands of gold seekers from every clime just coasted along tracks already made by the squatters. Even into the timbered ranges the tracks were found. The squatter had a ten year grace to roam wherever he wished, before the sudden influx and being of an adventurous spirit, he certainly did just that. The seekers also found they could lean on the squatter to provide in time of adversity meat, flour and medicine. Within a few weeks of the discovery of gold goods of every description poured along these same tracks from Geelong, Melbourne, Tasmania and Sydney. The first stock route running north west from Geelong entered the early village of Buninyong from the south by way Of Meredith, Mt Mercer, Grenville, Hardies Hill and Durham Lead, known as the West Road. After a period of time, in the year 1864, the Prince of Wales Company was calling it the Great Western Road. Three miles west of Buninyong, we find the Yarrowee River crossing spanned by a new concrete bridge. In May, 1864, the Buninyong Road Board reported repairs to the Western Road Bridge costing £29. This same bridge in 1858 was called by the 'Miner and Weekly Star' newspaper, the Star and Garter, stating that Holmes and Porter had a fivehead battery there. The bridge took its name from the Hotel, one of the early houses (1853) kept by mine host John Barron. This hotel stood on the corner of the old miner's road, running north through Magpie Gully and the approach to the new concrete bridge at Winters Flat. Arising out of a case of litigation between the Bonshaw Freehold Gold Mining Company Private Land, Manager William Henderson versus Henry Gee and sixty others representing the Alston Weardale Gold Mining Company, holders of miners rights, and despite some doubt by local historians the following proves the correct position of two roads, the Portland Bay Road to Geelong and Melbourne; and the Pyrenees Road in the early years of settlement. "that by a deed of grant, under the hand and seal of Charles Joseph LaTrobe, Lieutenant-Governor of the Colony of Victoria, dated the 9th day of January, 1854, all that piece or parcel in the colony of Victoria, containing by admeasurement 640 acres, which was bought by John Winter in 1850 for £600 was now sold by him for the sum of £20,000 to the Bonshaw Freehold Gold Mining Company, be the same more or less situated in the county of Grenville, Parish of Cardigan. Section A, commencing at a gum tree marked "A", on the west side of the Yarrowee River, bounded on the south by a line bearing west sixty eight chains (68) fifty links (50), on the west by a line bearing east one hundred and two chains (102) fifty links (50), on the east by the Yarrowee River, preserving two roads passing through the section to Portland Bay and the Pyrenees Range, the area of which has been allowed for in admeasurement, being the land granted to one John Winter under the regulation of the 28th day of June, 1850, his heirs and assigns". (Melbourne 'Argus', October 16, 1863, at the New Court House, Barkly Street, Ballarat, October 15, 1863, (the old Court House was at Buninyong). Before his Honor, His Justice Molesworth). Two miles west from the 'Star and Garter' were the Round Water Holes - the name only remains. The holes were destroyed by flood water in the Bonshaw Creek after the hillsides had been denuded of their timber. The bridge there was also repaired in May 1864, costing the Road Board £59. Looking back at the original bridge on the Yarrowee, a flood took it out in 1870. Further up stream the mines discharged sand and tailings into the river for years. The rains came, floods came up, and thousands of tons of spoil smashed into the bridge. It took a century before the new concrete bridge went in. At the Round Water Holes was the first store in inland Victoria, built by D S Campbell and Wooley of Melbourne. It was in this locality in the early 1840's where Ted 8Oley, one of Learmonth's shepherds was murdered by aborigines. A mile or so further west is where the Portland Bay Road swung south west through Ross Creek. Still pushing out into the sunset the Pyrenees Road went through Haddon, Carngham, Trawalla, Waterloo Flatt then wound over a low spur range to Raglan (the site of an early Police Post), on through a notch in the hills to Elmhurst, on the present Pyrenees highway, to join up with the track made by the men of the north who had pushed down from New South Wales. There are five sections of this old road with the wheel ruts still visible - three in the Buninyong Shire, and two in the Grenville Shire. The latter two are now enclosed with barbed wire, their significance lost. The ruts in one section extended to nearly 400 yards on what was known as the Haddon Common less than a mile north east of Haddon. In the Buninyong Shire between Grenville and Meredith is a fine example of solid going where drays and waggons have worn it into a sunken road. To preserve this part of our heritage these wheel tracks should be protected and waymarks placed, just as the Americans have done with their waggon train trails to Oregon and to the goldfields of California. The Americans were the first to use this word 'waymark' and give it real meaning. This act would commemorate the men who drove into the sunset before the infant village of Melbourne on the Yarra River had shed its swaddling clothes. Now that people are becoming more aware of the history and environment of the surrounds of the district in which they live, it would be an adequate time for the Sebastopol Borough to relieve the Shire of Buninyong of these old roads situated only a quarter of a mile from their southern boundary, giving them two of the oldest roads in the Central Highlands Region. Within a few years maybe the Pyrenees road will be a busy highway again. By the late fifties, toll gates were in full swing on the early roads. There were two on the stock route Albert Street - one on the Smythesdale road, and one at the Western side of the Water Holes Bridge. The cost to the traveller can be seen from this example taken on September 3, 1858.
Ox or cattle 1d Horse, mare or mule 3d Cart or dray with two wheels 1/- Drawn by two horses 1/6d Waggons with four wheels and two horses 2/6d Drawn by two bullocks 1/6d With every other bullock 3d Coaches 1/- Tolls were payable one way only for vehicles going an returning on the same day. Three-fourths of the above rate were charged for any vehicle when the tyres or wheels were not less than 4½" wide and perfectly flat and level throughout their whole width. |