Leaving the Clarence

From Ramornie, Edward set off across country towards the Nymboida River. It's ironic that if the original inhabitants hadn't been husbanding the country for tens of thousands of years, thus negating the argument that their non use of the land left it up for grabs, Europeans would've had far more difficulty in traversing it than they did.

Bill Gammage's excellent recent book, The Greatest Estate on Earth, describes how Aboriginal burning kept much of the country open. All over the country, early explorers describe the country as resembling an English park (ie open country with scattered mature trees). In this part of the world where the country hasn't been cleared or burnt, it is now impenetrable bush and Edward would've had no chance driving his small mob of fractious horses through it.

This is what uncleared  bush is like in these parts. Impenetrable.

He heads south east from Ramornie for about 30kms camping the night at a spot that will forever remain an unknown bush camp and the next day hits what he calls the beaten road. This would've been just a cart track through the bush but I guess roughly replicating what is now the Grafton-Armidale road. I cycled the back road from South Grafton to Coutts Crossing, as most closely approximating Edward's track, and then down the main road to Nymboida.

Edward describes stoping to eat and replace a horseshoe, close to Nymboye station on the South River. They called in at the station where they were given some fresh beef. When I mention Nymboye station to people in Grafton they all assumed that this was Nymboida but were otherwise vague as to what he would have meant by that. However, in Nymboida, a chat with a couple of gnarled cattle men (minding their stock on horseback, while they grazed the road verge - I suspect Edward would have felt immediately comfortable with these guys) quickly produced the advice that Nymboye  was the original Aboriginal name for the Nymboida River. They were also able to tell me that to the best of their knowledge the original Nymboye station sat where there are now 3 Coral trees next to the Nymboida Inn. They also told me that despite the general assumption that this road pretty well follows Craigs original line of road up to Grafton, in many places it does not. The old road is now pretty well disappeared in a maze of fire trails, bush tracks and bits of the main road.

Site of old Nymboye station. Its on a flood proof bluff high above the river so would've been a logical choice.

Chatty blokes, they also ventured that the bush would've been much more open in the early days and that "forestry" should've maintained the blackfellers pattern of burning. Their view is that now it has been left so long and the bush is so thick that any burn is likely to end in disaster. They also believe that many of the plant species that require a burning regime to regenerate are now facing possible extinction. Shrugged their shoulders. What's the solution? They can't think of one.

Nymboida Inn. From 1905 it wouldn't have been there in Edward's life time & sadly it seems will now suffer the fate of many country hotels and gradually fade away.

My next stop was the Nymboida Inn to seek permission to take photos of the Coral trees. An amiable couple, Belinda and Scott, who live in the Inn told me that they weren't aware of the significance of the trees but when I described my informants they agreed that if those blokes had told me, it'd be right. These guys were up for a chat too and told me the sad story of how the 100 year old Inn is now closed due to a bureaucratic wrangle over drawing water from the river for commercial use. City bureaucracy is understandably not popular in Nymboida these days.

From Nymboye they continued on a few more kilometres before camping for the night close to where the road started to rise through the mountains, as it still does today.