History of the Bellingen to Bowraville Road
“Pioneering in the Bellinger Valley” book published by the Bellinger Valley Historical Society
page 68 ...Brierfield
...the Bellingen-Bowraville road, formed in the 1880s....
...Mr M. Hanly brushed the first bridle track around the mountain to Bowra. As a road contractor he helped make the road and also built the small bridges and culverts...
page 83 Local Government
The Local Government Act of 1906 constituted the Shire of Bellingen....
...For several years after the constitution of the Council the main through traffic followed the road from Coffs Harbour via the Repton/Raleigh ferry to Bellingen, thence to Bowraville, Macksville, Upper Warrel Creek to Eungai boundary. Travellers, however, could travel via Urunga, branch off about halfway between Raleigh and Fernmount, crossing the Urunga ferry and continuing Southward to a direct road connecting with the ferry at Macksville. Nambucca Heads was by-passed by this route because there was no bridge over Newry Creek on the Macksville-Nambucca Heads Road
“Thats what it said in the papers 1887 - 1945”
page 16
1901 ...a grant was appproved for the building of a road from Brierfield to Bowraville...
“Ecol’s early Bellinger reminiscencies”
A recently published book of newspaper articles from 1924, in which John T Locke (under the nom de plume of Ecol) wrote stories of times before 1924. Unfortunately the following extract does not have the date of the event retold.
page 36 6-6-24 Raleigh Sun
“Yes; the track is very rough and badly chopped up; but here we are,” exclaimed John Convers, the driver and owner of the mail coach, running from MacLeay to the Bellinger, as his passengers disembarked late in the afternoon, after a six hour journey from the Macleay......”Yes, it was a hard time over the mountain! It was a case of getting into the old wheel tracks, and go for it.”
Such was the state of the road over the mountain from Bowraville, and only a winding bush track. Inter alia it is not much better today... (this last sentence referring to 1924)
“The Editor of the North Coast Times fairly howls at the Government, the then Member....for allowing this deplorable state of affairs....The spur must have brought blood, for tenders were called later for repairing the road.”
I wonder if the tender referred to, is the same as the report from the “papers” above which reported a grant for the road in 1901?
David Wallin
January 2010
