BENDETHERA

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The track from Moruya to Bendethera (west-south-west of Moruya) is rough today – suitable only for Four Wheel Drives and accessible in dry weather only (it’s a 1½ hour drive which ends with a long, very steep descent into the Bendethera Valley and several not-insignificant creek crossings).

One can only imagine the journey that faced those travelling to the area 150 years ago – a two or three day walk over some of the most heavily-wooded, rugged country imaginable, with climbs and descents of ridges up to 1,000 metres in height. Pack horses were required to transport any stores or equipment.

For the families who then settled in the Bendethera area, life would have remained a challenge. There is a stark reminder of this on one information board placed by the National Parks and Wildlife Service in the Bendethera camping area:

‘On one occasion here, one of the George family broke his leg some distance away from here down the Deua River.
Faced with the problem of not being able to safely transport his son home, Joseph George set the leg and built a lean-to shelter around the boy.
The family carted food and water to him while his leg healed.
He was there for over two weeks before he was able to be moved.’

Remarkably, that George family successfully worked the valley and (again – because there was no alternative - using pack horses) transported their produce considerable distances to sell in settlements including Moruya, Merricumbene, Araluen, Nerrigundah and even further south to Cooma.

It seems that the area was used from 1838, when a David Drummond obtained a Depasturing Licence from the NSW Government, enabling him to graze cattle on Crown land.

In 1863 Joseph George, who was a butcher by trade and who had run a business in Merricumbene (downstream along the Deua River from Bendethera, towards Araluen), purchased land and leased a further 840 acres of land at Bendethera. The story goes that he had first visited the area some time earlier when he tracked 40 miles along the Deua River in search of a horse - which he eventually found at Bendethera - that had been stolen from him by several Aboriginals.

Joseph and his wife Mary brought eight employees with them in 1863, including a carpenter who is believed to have been paid £2 per week and who helped build a house for the family, a separate kitchen and a number of sheds (a payment for 100 roofing rafters is noted among surviving records). A substantial family dwelling was certainly a necessity because Mary was to give birth to 14 children between 1861 and 1884, and all excepting the first were to survive and were raised at Bendethera. (James Richard, the first baby, is believed to have be buried in a grave that is still located and visible on their Bendethera property.)

Despite its relative isolation, the property was actually ideal for the use that Joseph and Mary had intended it. There were extensive river flats, they were fertile, and there were four main bridle tracks (at least one of which was also a postal track, and one was to become known as George’s Pack Track) leading in different directions out of the valley, along which George could transport his produce to significant-size markets, including Araluen which, in the 1860s and 1870s, had a population of up to 30,000.

Wheat, corn, oats and vegetables were cropped at Bendethera, and cattle, pigs, turkeys and horses were raised. Cheese was also manufactured, bacon was produced. And wattle bark was stripped from trees in the area and pack-horsed out to Moruya.

This was not a small-scale enterprise and the Georges operated a very efficient, productive farm. Joseph noted at various times in his diary that he had 300 pigs, 200 bullocks and cows and calves…as well as 40 packhorses; that he transported (presumably using these packhorses!) 1,064 lbs of bacon, 2,000 lbs of flour and 21 bags of corn on one occasion to miners at Araluen; and that he had 17 acres of land under crop with wheat and 60 acres cropped with corn.

The method used by the George family to get their turkeys to market was ingenious: a sack of corn would be attached to the lead packhorse, it would have a small hole drilled into it, and the turkeys would simply follow the trail of corn that would be dropped along the track over the ranges.

A mile-long gravity flow irrigation channel (which can still be clearly seen) was dug along contours of the land from nearby Little Con Creek to provide water for crops – an essential resource in an area that could become very dry at times. It is believed ex-miners from nearby goldfields were employed by the George family to help construct this and its associated holding reservoir.

As his sons grew old enough, Joseph gave each a paddock to cultivate and maintain.

Despite its physical isolation and the challenges travelling there, the property received a substantial number of visitors.

Several large, spectacular limestone caves are located about a 4km walk upstream along Con Creek from the main Bendethera homestead and farming area which were of attraction/still attract groups of speleologists. In 1889, 1,180 acres around the caves were dedicated for public recreation. Then, for a time in the 1890s (when the NSW Government was actively promoting caves throughout the state as tourist attractions), one of Joseph’s sons, Benjamin, was employed as ‘caretaker of the caves’ and was paid £50 per year by the government. He improved access to the caves by, for example, installing ladders – but that financial arrangement was soon stopped because visitors to the cave rarely exceeded 100 in any year (access to cave systems in places such as Jenolan and Yarrangobilly was infinitely easier, their cave systems were more extensive and more attractive to visitors, and there was absolutely no tourist infrastructure provided at Bendethera although the George family were welcoming).

In the 1880s a racecourse was constructed just across adjacent Con Creek from the George family homestead. Reportedly, significant numbers of people travelled to these race meetings.

And, whilst the George and later Rankin families lived at Bendethera, they received quarterly visits from the Catholic Parish Priest in Moruya (both families were active members of the Catholic Church in Moruya).

As gold mining in surrounding areas tapered off, the George family encouraged the development of silver mining close to Bendethera. Several mine shafts were sunk but were rapidly abandoned; the logistics of getting equipment into the area and of transporting material out of the area simply made the prospects unviable.

It seems that the George family experienced significant financial difficulties during the 1930s (the ready markets that were initially available at gold mining towns such as Araluen and Nerrigundah had long disappeared) and their bank may have tried to, unsuccessfully, auction off the property. At the time, another of George’s sons, Randolph, is recorded to have been paid £10 per year by the local Council to keep the original trail to Bendethera (which followed the Deua River for a substantial distance) open.

However, the Bendethera property remained in the George family until 1949 when it was ultimately sold to the neighbouring (seven miles downstream) Rankin family for £500. For 30 years from about 1939 none of the George family, or later the Rankin family, had lived in the property as it was no longer considered to be a highly productive property - which is perhaps unsurprising, as local major markets for their produce had, by then, completely disappeared. By the mid-1960s the property was not even being used for agistment of horses or cattle.

After 1965 the Bendethera landholding passed to the McKinnon and then to Robinson families, before it was finally incorporated into the newly-formed Deua National Park in 1979.

Until as recently as 1964 access to the Deua area was available only by horse or foot. The construction of a network of fire trails in the 1970s then provided four-wheel drive access and the area became a popular destination for groups and individuals. For a time, the Robinsons charged for access across their property to the caves with, reputedly, about 1,000 visitors paying a $2 entry fee during the first six months of 1979.

Photograph: Bendethera Homestead c1910.