FARMING families who in 1862 first took up land in the fertile Yarrawa Brush rainforest, on the eastern side of the Highlands, arrived up two tracks from the Illawarra coastal region.

By 1865 about 30,000 acres of land had been taken up by these selectors and it was estimated there were about 1,200 residents in the eastern district and so grew the villages of Burrawang, Robertson and Kangaloon.

Coastal access was made easier in 1863 when a new track up the escarpment in the vicinity of the present Macquarie Pass was located and again in 1869 when a road from Albion Park to Kangaloon became available for traffic. It was described as the best mountain road on the south coast.

In 1865 Surveyor Campbell divided the eastern area into four parishes called by their Aboriginal names. Kangaloon lay on the north side of the Swamp with Yarrawa on the south-east side extending to the Kangaroo River and bounded by Burrawang at Joe Wilde’s meadow and by Yarrunga to the west towards Sutton Forest.

In Yarrawa an area was set aside for a township and the selectors petitioned the government to name the town Robertson, in honour of the Secretary for Lands who had made possible the opening up of the district by providing for free selection before survey of unreserved Crown Land at one pound per acre.

It was Burrawang though that developed as the area’s first township - its name is the Aboriginal word for a palm that once grew prolifically on its sheltered hillslopes. John Hanrahan, generally credited as the first to take up land in the brush country, established his selection there in 1862, and the place developed quickly. By 1865 it had a post office and school attended by around seventy pupils, an indication of the rapid influx of new settlers.

THESE STOUT-HEARTED pioneers had to set about erecting shelter and growing food as soon as possible. First a bark hut was built and land cleared. To fell the forest messmate timber, useful for fencing, building and for making shingles, large axes were used, the length from blade to head being about eight inches (20cm).

Other useful trees were sassafras and mountain beech, suitable for indoor work and flooring, and the Acacia melanoxylon, a cabinet wood which polished well. Some of the logs were cut up in sawpits where two sawyers used a long cross-cut saw. The work was heavy and laborious.

When a piece of land was cleared, it was dug with a hoe; ploughs were not used as at first tree stumps were not removed. A report in 1863 stated that the district grew maize equal to any produced in Illawarra, while potatoes surpassed any grown on the coast.

Yet due to a lack of serviceable roads, produce could not easily be conveyed to major markets and farmers had good crops rot in the ground. Thus they concentrated on raising stock that could be driven to market through the bush, laying the foundation of the dairying and beef raising industries that were to flourish.

THREE YEARS of bad drought from 1867 almost devastated the struggling settlers but by the 1870s a brighter future dawned when the establishment of steam sawmills opened a market for their timber.

During the drought, dairy cattle were brought up from Kiama for better pasture and the butter produced was sent on packhorses back down a butter trail and via the coastal port to Sydney.

In 1876 upgrades to the Kiama road up the Jamberoo Mountain improved access for the highland settlers. However still no decent road linked the eastern settlements with Bong Bong or Bowral to the west.

There were tracks through the brush but these were often made impassable by the Wingecarribee Swamp and marshes after rain. However, to the north a rough track from Dapto had been cut in 1843 up the escarpment and across sections of hilly, rough country to Mittagong. A road via this track connecting Kangaloon to Mittagong was opened in 1865, and two years later was extended to Robertson.

Once the southern railway was put through Moss Vale in 1867, a more serviceable road opened from Robertson to Moss Vale, winding its way via Burrawang along Hoddle’s original line, until replaced by the more direct Illawarra Highway route.

From 1867 the Yarrawa settlers, linked to east and west, were ready to surge ahead.

• This article is sourced from the archives of Berrima District Historical and Family History Society, Bowral Rd, Mittagong. Contribution of information and old photographs welcome. Email bdhsarchives@acenet.com.au; call 4872 2169. Website: berrimadistricthistoricalsociety.org.au