TWO hundred years after William Cox’s gang of convicts and free men built a road over the Blue Mountains to Bathurst, a group of bushwalkers and heritage enthusiasts have done it again.
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Under slightly less difficult conditions than their predecessors, the group started at Mount York earlier in the week and made their way into Bathurst on Saturday.
Tim Cox, a descendent of William Cox, who led the original journey, was joined by his two sisters Pip [Mater] and Sue [Behm] and said re-walking the route was an incredible experience.
“At one point I was walking along Carlwood Road and I was thinking back to what they would have been doing 200 years ago,” he said.
“They would have been going along building a road, perhaps knocking out a tree or two, checking if the road was wide enough, then they would come to a creek and have to build a bridge. It really is incredible.”
The journey marked 200 years almost to the day that Governor Macquarie and Mrs Macquarie and a party of 42 travelled from Sydney to arrive in Bathurst on May 4 in time for the Proclamation of Bathurst.
Up to 40 people at any one time were part of the walk as it made its way to Bathurst.
The building of Cox’s Road from Emu Ford to Bathurst was a pivotal event in Australia’s transition from a coastal penal settlement to the beginnings of a continent-wide nation. It also signalled the beginning of dramatic change for Aboriginal people.
Mr Cox said walkers were joined by members of the Central West Bushwalking Club on the last leg of the walk, as it continued into Bathurst along Gormans Hill Road to arrive at the flag staff.
When the group arrived, Mr Cox said he was overcome with emotion.
“They asked me to get up and say a few words at the flag staff and I got all choked up with the realisation of what that original party achieved,” he said. “Being part of this has been very special.”