ASSISTANT SURVEYOR ROBERT HODDLE’S 1823 EXCURSION IN THE
GARDENS OF STONE – AND A DARK SECRET?
Andy Macqueen
P.O. Box 204,
P.O. Box 204,
Wentworth Falls, NSW 2782.
andymacqueen@gmail.com
Abstract
In 1823 Assistant Surveyor Robert Hoddle (later Surveyor General of Victoria) was ordered, as his first substantial job in the Colony, to survey the route of the Blue Mountains crossing defined by Archibald Bell, and then to establish whether a road to the Hunter Valley could be found by heading northward from the Bell area. In pursuit of the latter task he became embroiled in the sandstone pagoda country in the headwaters of Bungleboori Creek, but finally turned back at Birds Rock on Sunnyside Ridge. His brief descriptions of the pagoda rocks and ravines are almost poetic and thus unique in the early literature of the area. However, it is possible that the expedition was marred by an unreported event involving the death of Aboriginal people.
In 1823 Assistant Surveyor Robert Hoddle (later Surveyor General of Victoria) was ordered, as his first substantial job in the Colony, to survey the route of the Blue Mountains crossing defined by Archibald Bell, and then to establish whether a road to the Hunter Valley could be found by heading northward from the Bell area. In pursuit of the latter task he became embroiled in the sandstone pagoda country in the headwaters of Bungleboori Creek, but finally turned back at Birds Rock on Sunnyside Ridge. His brief descriptions of the pagoda rocks and ravines are almost poetic and thus unique in the early literature of the area. However, it is possible that the expedition was marred by an unreported event involving the death of Aboriginal people.
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