Did you know that tucked away in the Southern Highlands is the perhaps oldest surviving colonial causeway in New South Wales, maybe even Australia?
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
So where is this causeway?
To answer that question we need to go back to 1819, when Charles Throsby forged the Great South Road, or Argyle Road, through what is now the Bong Bong Common between Bowral and Moss Vale, site of the first European settlement in the Southern Highlands.
He found a spot to cross the Wingecarribee River downstream from the current Bong Bong Bridge.
This original South Road followed the route opened by explorers and built by Throsby under instructions from Governor Macquarie. It provided access through the Camden area south towards Goulburn.
Overseer Joseph Wild and 11 convicts constructed this 120 kilometre road from Picton, through Bong Bong and south to the Wollondilly River down Goulburn way in just eight months.
When Governor Macquarie rode through Bong Bong in 1820 to check out this new road south he noted in his journal that the road crossed the river “by a good sound pebbly ford.”
The basalt stones placed on the bed of the river at the causeway crossing were probably brought in from Mount Gibraltar. The ‘pebbly ford’ was edged with larger stones.
Between 1820 and 1829 horizontal ironbark logs were used to define the crossing and vertical posts on the western side helped support a low-level wooden bridge.
Despite almost 200 years of floods raging over Macquarie’s old ‘pebbly ford’ the bed of stones and some hardwood posts are still visible beside the Wingecarribee River just off the Bong Bong Track in the Bong Bong Common.
A rare bit of local history worthy of preservation.
You can learn more about the old Bong Bong Township by visiting a National Trust Heritage Festival exhibition upstairs in Harper’s Mansion at Berrima on Saturdays and Sundays - 10.30am to 4pm from April 21 to May 20.
