His response was:
No problem, peter, as long as
we cite john whitehead....he's the expert. I was struggling to understand the
inconsistencies until I read his work. He is now acting as a brains trust on my
own book on the warrumbungles which is about 95 per cent finished, and now in
the process of being double-checked :)
So, with thanks from both of
us to John Whitehead, here’s his correction:
Dear Peter,
I just wanted to send you a little bit of info to ease
your mind on one particular topic – your climb to the top of Mount Exmouth.
I'm a former newspaper editor and keen writer of
history...and am doing a book at present on my family, who were pioneers in the
Warrumbungle Mountains from 1841, holding several farms in the range.
My great-great grandmother was Rachel Jane
Kennedy/McGill/Inglis who became quite a folk hero of the region as a midwife,
squatter-fighter and horsewoman. She, and my family, always knew Mount Exmouth
as 'Mount Wambelong'.
Peter, I read about your experience climbing Mount
Exmouth, "to see what Oxley saw". You said it took you many hours,
and your knees groaned in the steepest sections, and on the way down, you said:
‘It took three hours of slow and careful treading to get back to the car. I
swore occasionally at Mr Oxley, who said that he got up there in two brisk
hours…’.
There was no need to be so hard on yourself, Peter.
Oxley was on a completely different mountain. He actually climbed Mount
Bullaway, to the north.
The mountain range was of course first seen by
European explorers in 1818 when Oxley approached from the west. Three peaks
stood out on the skyline, so he cited their compass bearings and named them:
Mount Exmouth [Mount Bullaway], Mount Harrison [Mount Wambelong/Exmouth] and
Vernon’s Peake [Tonduron Spire].
On his way through, Oxley camped at ‘Kangaroo Hill’
(today's Mount Tenandra) and then spent a few nights at ‘Loadstone Hill’,
easily-identified as present-day Black Mountain, because of the wild effect its
magnetic rocks had on his compass.
From this campsite, Oxley looked due east to the large
peak that he called ‘Mount Exmouth’ – today’s Mount Bullaway.
He wrote in his journal: ‘We set off early this
morning to ascend Mount Exmouth, distant four or five miles: at its base we
crossed a pretty stream of water, having its source in the Mount; it took us
nearly two hours of hard labour to ascend its rugged summits…’.
Mount Bullaway is 8 kilometres from Black Mountain,
fitting perfectly the ‘four or five miles’ described by Oxley, and the ‘pretty
stream’ flowing out of the mountain was Caleriwi Creek, also called Frasers Creek.
And, today it still takes about two hours to climb Mount Bullaway.
The modern peak that is incorrectly-named Mount
Exmouth – Oxley’s ‘Mount Harrison’ – was in a different direction and much
further away. For Oxley to walk more than 12 kilometres across a marshy plain
(a full day’s work given the marshy flooding that it was experiencing at the
time), and then climbing to the top of the mountain (a 5-7 hour round-trek,
according to the National Parks & Wildlife Service), only to then battle it
back across the flooded plain to return to Loadstone Hill by 4pm, as Oxley
noted in his journal, seems impossible.
When the explorer left Loadstone Hill, he described
his route to the north-east, ‘over low strong ridges, the sides and summits
of some of which were very thick brush of cypress trees…We [camped] in an
extensive low valley north of Mount Exmouth and running under its base, bounded
on the north-east by low forest hills.’
That describes present-day Goorianawa valley. If
Oxley’s ‘Mount Exmouth’ was truly the Mount Exmouth of today, the only ‘valley’
would be the one underneath Siding Spring Observatory – and it does not have
‘low forest hills’ to the north-east, but rugged mountain ridges.
When you throw in the explorer’s own maps and
bearings, it is clear Mount Bullaway was the peak climbed. John Oxley never set
foot within the present-day boundary of Warrumbungle National Park.
Oxley’s route was, in the 1960s, comprehensively
plotted by local researchers such as John Whitehead – a keen historian who was
a shire engineer of Coonabarabran Council and a national park trustee.
His conclusions and maps are explained in detail in his painstaking 2008 book, The
Warrumbungles: Dead Volcanoes, National Parks, Telescopes and Scrub.
Oxley’s original mountain names from 1818 were
forgotten by the white settlers of the 1830s-1850s who used Aboriginal words
instead, and knew the tallest peak in the range as ‘Mount Wambelong’. That name
was also cited on parish maps and in newspaper articles.
The confusion began in the 1930s when environmentalist
Miles Dunphy – who was spearheading the campaign to create a Warrumbungle
National Park – drew up a tourist map for the use of early visitors. It was a
beautiful piece of work, but Dunphy took it upon himself to rename Mount
Wambelong as ‘Mount Exmouth’, based on his mistaken belief that it was that
peak that had been climbed by Oxley.
Dunphy’s map – the only of its type in existence – was
printed and reprinted, and government staffers and others cited from it for
decades, entrenching the error.
By the early 1970s, local researchers had mounted such
a strong case that Dunphy was mistaken, that the peak was officially renamed
Mount Wambelong. This, however, left some influential noses out of joint.
‘Having Oxley pass through Warrumbungle National Park
was seen by many to enhance its status as a tourist and historical attraction,’ John Whitehead explained, whereas Mount Bullaway
– Oxley’s real Mount Exmouth – was narrowly outside the park boundary. Others,
he believed, were simply reluctant to contradict Dunphy, the great founding
father of the park.
In March 1979, the NSW Geographical Names Board
reversed its decision and reinstated the Mount Exmouth name, a concession being
that a trig station on its summit was to be known as ‘Wambelong Trig’. The
reason given by Board was that the peak was already too commonly known by the
local community and park visitors as Mount Exmouth. This was an unlikely claim,
but was accepted by officialdom.
The problem is, history is now being unwittingly
misrepresented. It is not hard to find scores of examples of media outlets and
websites incorrectly claiming that it was today’s incorrectly-named Mount
Exmouth that was climbed by John Oxley.
I’d just didn't want you to feel bad about your
inability to match Oxley's fitness, Peter.... time yourself up Mount Bullaway
instead :)
Cheers, Jeff McGill
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