Australia So Much to See
Camping
Cudal Caravan Park; a small council caravan park.
Escort Rock Rest Area has a pit toilet, but is close to the Escort
Way so not an ideal overnight stop.
Terarra Creek Campground, Nangar National Park. Free camp within the park has six
sites, pit toilet. Caravan accessible. Access via Dripping Rock Road, ten kilometres north east of Eugowra along the Escort
Way.
Eugowra Byrne’s Park near bridge over Mandagery Creek. Dump point but no other facilities. Free.
Eugowra Showground,
south east side of town, with toilets, showers, water and powered sites. Contact IGA store on west side of bridge to make payment
and obtain a key to the amenities ($20 deposit required). Fees $20 powered and $15 unpowered sites.
Planning to stay at the showground, but not finding any businesses open, we could not ask where to go to pay and access the amenities
key, so after coming to Eugowra especially for the bushranger history, we left the town. Little did we know that the IGA supermarket
on the west side of the bridge in a newer area was open seven days a week, and this, on the opposite side of town, was where payment
for the showground camping was made. However we were still there a day late for the museum.
Heading towards Parkes,
we found an old road passing a former quarry, so we had a nice bush stay overnight.
Frank Gardiner (Francis Christie). Gardiner used a number of aliases, and was known as The Darkie. Gang leader. He served ten years in prison, before being released on the condition he leave the country. Believed to have died in San Francisco
in 1904, aged 74. Other reports date his death as being in 1882.
John O'Mealley (John O’Malley). Shot at "Goimbla"
in 1863, aged 23.
Ben Hall. Shot near Forbes in 1865, aged 27. Ben Hall was involved in many armed holds in the final
three years of his life, after he teamed up with Frank Gardiner and other gangsters. He has become a folklore legend.
John Gilbert. Shot near Binalong in 1865, aged 23. He had joined Frank Gardiner’s gang soon after leaving home aged 12.
Harry Manns (Henry Manns). Hanged 1863, aged 24.
Alex Fordyce. Sentence to hard labour and released ten years later. Died 1899 aged 70.
John Bow. Initially given the death sentence, this was commuted to hard labour. He was released twelve
years later. There are unsubstantiated rumours he became Mayor of Mudgee. He died aged 52.
Daniel Charters (known
as Flash Dan). Pardoned for giving evidence as a crown witness. Died 1919, possibly aged 82.
The coach driver John Fagan and the police made their way to nearby Eugowra homestead. The owner, Hanbury Clements, hurried
to Forbes to alert the authorities.
A detachment of police and an Aboriginal tracker set off next morning and surprised
the bushrangers at their Wheogo Hill hideout on Wheogo Station. During the chase, Gardiner released an exhausted pack horse
to avoid capture, and a considerable amount of gold was recovered. More gold and cash was recovered when police apprehended Harry
Manns west of Forbes some time later. The remainder of the haul was never recovered.
Eventually all the bushrangers
were either arrested or killed. Hall, Gilbert and O'Mealley were shot, Manns was hanged, and the rest were gaoled. Charters
became a crown witness and was pardoned. After serving ten years of his 32 year sentence in goal, Gardiner was released and
exiled.
Five kilometres north east of Eugowra, Escort Rock is the site of Australia’s largest gold robbery. The present road now bypasses
the site, but a walk of around 200 metres from the Rest Area takes you along the old coach road tracks (below) and to the rock where
bushrangers ambushed the coach carrying the rich load.
Around twelve kilometres further west, we again crossed Boree Creek at Toogong, a small settlement with little remaining but a historic
church and a few houses. This was once a Cobb and Co stop on the Orange to Forbes Road.
By 1861 Cudal was on the main road from Orange to the Forbes goldfields and was seen as the crossing point over Boree Creek. Cudal is situated on the banks of Boree Creek which commences from Borenore Caves. The town was first surveyed in 1867. Being a mid way point between Orange and Eugowra or Canowindra, it was a place to rest the horses, and stay safe from bushrangers.
We left Molong, joining the Escort Way around ten kilometres west of Borenore Caves. Mount Canobolas dominated the horizon for
some way.
In the 1860s the gold rush had taken hold around Forbes and each week a coach carrying riches from the diggings travelled along the
road heading to Orange. On 15th June 1862, the coach carried the driver, the police escort of four, and a large amount of gold,
cash and mail.
Frank Gardiner's gang lay wait behind the large granite boulders behind this single rock, which was used during the ambush.
At the locality of Murga, there is little but the remains of the
former post office which is now deserted, on private property and once used as a private home, and an old timber mill a few hundred
metres to the east. Murga was also once a stop in the Cobb and Co stagecoach line from Orange to Forbes.
This forced
the coach to slow down as it passed between the gully and the rocks (see map at right). The bushranger gang fired on the coach,
injuring two of the police. This frightened the horses so they bolted, overturning the coach. The bushrangers ransacked
the coach, taking 2,719 ounces of gold and 3,700 in cash (a multi-million dollar haul in today's values) packed on one of the coach
horses.
In fact much of the town was shut Monday and Tuesday, as a tourist town this is their “weekend” with all being open Saturday and Sunday.
Walking around there were murals depicting early life and the bushranger theme.
Eugowra is said to be named after the Indigenous Australian word meaning "The place where the sand washes down the hill".
In
1834, Pastoral settlement began with the establishment of ‘Eugowra’ station. Eugowra village developed in the 1860s on the Eugowra
station, from which the village took its name. The town grew around a bridge over Mandagery Creek on the route to the Lachlan
goldfields.
Eugowra is known for its granite. From the 1910s granite from the surrounding area was quarried. More
than 2000 slabs of local granite were used in the construction of Parliament House in Canberra.
Eugowra village developed in
the 1860s on the Eugowra station. It emerged near a bridge over Mandagery Creek on the route to the Lachlan goldfields.
New South Wales - The Escort Way to Eugowra
