Settler Australian Culture and Heritage
Nature & People
Captain James Cook named the Three Brothers Mountains, on the NSW mid-north coast, when he sailed past in 1770. These mountain peaks were also known to the local Birpai Aboriginal people as three brothers. The history and cultural associations of colonial settlers and Aboriginal people after 1788 are important components of the landscapes of the Great Eastern Ranges.
The Blue Mountains were initially a barrier to British settlement in the early colony of Sydney. A number of people attempted and failed to cross the Great ‘Dividing’ Range before the successful crossing by Gregory Blaxland, Lieutenant William Lawson and William Charles Wentworth in 1813.
The Great Eastern Ranges have a long history as a place of retreat. Aboriginal people often settled in the high country as a result of British colonial expansion, which was often violent and resulted in the loss of Aboriginal land and resources. Some Aboriginal people found employment on mountain pastoral stations, such as East Kunderang Station on the Upper Macleay River. For bushrangers, such as the ‘gentleman’ bushranger Fred Ward (Captain Thunderbolt) and the famous black outlaw Jimmy Governor, the rugged ranges could be a place of retreat to avoid capture.
The high country has also been a place to retreat from the cities. The forested highlands of the ranges are a place for leisure – bushwalking in the Blue Mountains and snow skiing in the Southern Alps. The clean air and spectacular scenery of the mountains attracted tourists and the development of guest houses, such as the Hydro-Majestic Hotel near Katoomba, Caves House at Jenolan and another Caves House at Yarangobilly in the Snowy Mountains.
The pastoral way of life brought by Europeans to the high country resulted in a distinctive landscape mythology that linked horses, people and stock to the mountains. This is best evidenced in Andrew Barton (Banjo) Patterson’s famous poem of 1890, The Man from Snowy River. The poem popularised and romanticised the pioneering spirit and physical setting of the mountain cattlemen and became an important part of oral tradition.
The high country of NSW contains a reliable source of water. This has led to many water and electricity supply infrastructure projects, the most well known of these is the Snowy Mountains Hydro-Electric Scheme. The scheme was constructed by more than 100,000 workers between 1949 and 1973. Migrants from over 30 countries came to work in the mountains, and to live in Australia.
The Great Eastern Ranges have long been associated with conservation. The limestone environments at Wombeyan and Jenolan were reserved in the 1860s, and a recreation reserve was gazetted around Katooma Falls in 1883. Snowy Mountains National Chase was established in 1906, Kosciuszko National Park in 1944, and the Blue Mountains National Park in 1959. Conservation ‘battles’ over the last 40 years, such as the ‘Fight for the Forest’ clashes, resulted in the establishment of new national parks along the length of the Great Eastern Ranges, from Gippsland in Victoria to southern Queensland. Some parts of this park system, like the Gondwana Rainforests of Australia and the Greater Blue Mountains Area, are inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List. Conservation is also the keystone of the Great Eastern Ranges Initiative.
