It's Cold in Them Thar Mountains

From Nymboida, the road rises steadily into the mountains towards the New England plateau. From Ramornie it took Edward 5 days to get to Ebor Falls, a trip we managed in just over half a day. However, 5 days was bloody good going. Once a few kilometres past Nymboida the farmland ceases and apart from the road, the odd fence and power line, there is nothing but thick bush. The road today, while sealed, is a narrow, winding track that rises relentlessly upwards and we only averaged about 50km per hour. From the little hamlets of Dundarrabin, where Blicks River crosses the road, and Tyringham, the ground starts to level out and  cleared farmland starts again.

Blicks River. A dashing torrent, now as it was then. 

I'm assuming that Edward had some rudimentary map because he names features like Clouds Creek and Blicks River and the open downs of Hernani that the road still crosses today. The fact that they already had fixed names indicates that it wasn't completely uncharted territory and of course it was a similar route to the one they took when first travelling up from Edward's parents place on the Hunter River. I did wonder if he chose this route for his trip for sentimental reasons associated with that first trip?

Hernani School. Who wouldn't want a school gate like that?

Squatter's Castle describes Edward's party on that original 1840 trip meeting up with Richard Craig and the party he was leading to seek land on the Clarence, at Ebor Falls on the Guy Fawkes River. However, if the local history in Ebor today is correct, the falls and river didn't have those names at that stage. Interpretive signage in the area says that the river was named by a party that camped on it on Guy Fawkes Day in 1844, after Edward's original trip. The name Ebor was given to the area by a Major Parkes who was an early holder of Guy Fawkes station and as a patriotic Englishman he was appalled at this honouring of a traitorous terrorist (see they're not a new thing). He bestowed the area with the ancient name of his home city of York, Ebor. The Gumbaynggirr name for the falls was Martiam. Might've been simpler to just stuck with that.

Once again the blog gremlins won't let me put this photo where I want it, below Ebor Falls. It's the wild, dark, unfathomable abyss into which they plunge. A rift valley in more prosaic terms.

Edward and his party stopped for lunch just above the falls and attracted by the noise, Denny and Smith went for a look. They were struck full of wonder and delight never having seen anything like it before. Once again Edward delved into his lyrical self to describe the falls...after its first wild leap, the maddened stream, broken into a cloud of spray, is collected in its rocky basin only to be dashed foaming over a second precipice scarcely inferior to the first. Beyond this, the still tormented river, chafed by rocks and rapids, becomes lost to view in the depths of the wild, dark, unfathomable abyss. Crikey...much easier today. I'll just let a photo provide my thousand words.

Ebor  Falls

We must've camped pretty well where Edward had lunch. The Ebor Falls Hotel-Motel, built in the 1970s after the earlier Ebor Hotel burnt down in 1968 (there are some graphic photos of the fire over the bar) has several van sites out the back. These are just a short distance upstream from the falls as was Edward's lunch spot. As we progressed up through the mountains the temperature dropped noticeably and by the time we got to Ebor it was clear that the balmy days and nights we'd experienced in Grafton were over. While the Ebor Hotel can't be described as luxurious, it was warm and a powered site meant our little fan heater could be called into action.

Ebor Hotel. $20 for a powered site round the back. Can't say fairer than that.

Edward then describes calling in at Guy Fawkes Station travelling west from the falls. Today what is known as Guy Fawkes Station is east of Ebor. I asked around but none of the locals seemed to know where the original Station was although the original township was some kilometres west of its present location so that may well have been the spot. However, no-one could tell me of any remaining old buildings. "Everything eventually burns down round here", was one pithy summary.