From the 1860s, the parish of Meryla included today's Werai and Manchester Square localities (being the first parts of the Meryla area to be settled), and extended southwards to Sandy Creek and down into Meryla Valley at the western end of Kangaroo Valley, accessed via Meryla Pass, a steep cattle track in use from the 1820s.

In the 1890s farms were established down in the Meryla Valley. An upgraded Meryla Pass track and the Meryla Road, which linked with the Yarrawa (Nowra) Road near Moss Vale, provided vehicular access.

Quoted in last week's column was the first paragraph of 'Down in Old Meryla', an article in the Moss Vale Post of October 1947. Contributed by Charles Wright of Moss Vale and formerly of Avoca, it continues here:

"When I was 12 years old my father bought 120 acres in the Meryla Valley and this was used as a dry stock run. At that time there was a population of about 70, including farmers, sleeper cutters, spoke and nave cutters (for the wheelwright business), and bee farmers came later. The people successfully applied for a school and I remember when there were well over 20 pupils on the roll.

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The farmers made butter and had pigs and made Moss Vale the market for most of their produce. There is rich soil throughout most of the valley. They were a wonderful class of people in those days, and most were self-supporting, growing most of their food on the farm. This included fruit and vegetables. One old hand, Jim Ditton, even grew tobacco leaf, cured it in rum and saltpetre and dried it. He then twisted it into one-inch thick strands and stored it until it matured. It was then ready for the pipe, and the old chap was popular among the sleeper cutters.

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I remember George Waite used to cart sleepers up the mountain pass. While coming around the horse-shoe bend, a wallaby jumped out and frightened the two horses in the lead. They shied and pulled the three horses over a stone wall and fell about 15 feet to the gully below. Two horses were killed outright and another crippled.

As for wildlife of the valley, wallabies were there in their thousands, lots of native dogs, tiger cats, fireflies, pigeons, diamond and carpet snakes up to 10 feet long, red-bellied black snakes and a few tiger snakes.

I myself ended up with 300 acres in the valley and ran up to 70 bullocks, but when the rabbits and blackberries made their appearance, and the pioneer families grew up and left, the place commenced to deteriorate and today is a back number from an agricultural point of view.

I have many times explored the country from Meryla to the Shoalhaven River, and anyone fond of scenery cannot do better than to take a trip to Meryla Valley and go around the cliff to the right before going down the mountain road. With a pair of field glasses, one can see all the upper regions of the Shoalhaven River with its rugged country, and from one point the sea is visible, and in the distance the Braidwood mountain."

More information about Meryla Valley is found in notes left by historian Rachel Roxburgh. In 1982 she interviewed Herman Chapman, then in his 70s, who lived at Moss Vale, had run an automobile business, and had spent much time at Meryla. He recounted that Yates had a farm on Gale's Flat, situated down the Pass; the Wells had a school near the Pass (on Garbutt family land), and that up to 1908 there were 30 farms, including both below the Pass and in the forest, but a fire went through that year, burning out most of the farmers who were already in debt, and the bank foreclosed. Several farms were burnt out by bushfires again in 1965.

Herman also noted that, by the early 1900s, the mails and through traffic were using Barrengarry Rd, a more direct way in and out of Kangaroo Valley, and when the settlers eventually left Meryla Valley, driven out by rabbits and blackberries, their local road up the Pass fell into disuse.

Other sources reveal that Meryla Pass road was repaired in the 1920s and soon attracted adventurous motorists, to be described in the next article.

Pt 3 of 4, Meryla 2nd series. To be continued