Blue Mountains history

Crossings:  New histories from the old legends
Last year, 2013,  saw the bicentenary of the famous ‘first’ crossing of the Blue Mountains and 2014 marks 200 years since the construction of Cox’s Road, the fabled ‘first’ road over the Blue Mountains. But 2013 also marks fifty years since geographer Tom Perry pointed out that the crossing of the Blue Mountains in 1813 was not driven by the search for new land at all, but by a need for more grass for cattle and sheep. Since then many other key strands of the ‘first crossing’ legends have also been challenged or dismantled. This is why bicentenary event organisers have been careful to add the qualifiers ‘first official/ reported/ recognised crossing of the Blue Mountains by white men’.
But can we move beyond simply adding qualifiers to the old story?  What new insights have the historical, geographical and archaeological research of the last half century revealed about the crossings? Where do the legends lead us now? In this paper I want to return to the environments, animals and people of the mountains, river, ford and floodplain. What did the crossing of the Blue Mountains in 1813 and the construction of Cox’s Road mean to convicts, emancipists, settlers and Aboriginal people in their own time and place?  What new light does this throw on the dynamics, culture and compass of colonial life in the 1810s and 1820s?

Nancy Langston, in Human and Ecological Change in the Inland Northwest Forests, argued that human desires were the definition of a healthy natural system. (Langston, n.d., pp. 430) This healthy ecosystem depended on eliminating anything that interfered with controlled annual growth of trees, including: insects, older trees, fire, and natural processes that reduce production of commodities. (Langston, n.d., pp. 430)

Gary Snyder, in The Rediscovery of Turtle Island, shares the indigenous Nisenan and Maidu’s Sacramento Valley story of Coyote, Turtle and Earth Maker creating the Earth, from a small grain of dirt received from the ocean. (Snyder, n.d., pp. 305) In the story of creation, altered from the biblical Judeo-Christian version, life has its place and rightful time; Coyote imagined the developed land, but he also imagined an ending for each species time, on the planet. (Snyder, n.d., pp. 306) We appreciate and value our experiences.

Alan Thein Durning shared the story of the unmapped watershed route of the Pacific Northwest, in This Place On Earth Home and the Practice of Permanence. (Durning, n.d., pp. 259) No other part of the industrial world had as many natural ecosystems intact than the Pacific Northwest, with sustainability practices implemented and enforced to lead to an ecologically conscientious outcome. (Durning, n.d., pp. 264) According to this article, the Pacific Northwest had a civility, culture and humanity that matched its beautiful, rugged scenery, as a model for sustainability, that the world could learn from. (Durning, n.d., pp. 264) Death Valley is part of this scenery; no other place on earth had as many geological features in one place, still intact. We find inspiration and learn about our connection to a place, where we work and live.

It was fun growing up as a kid when grown ups were naïve and the nation was itself a child.

My co-travellers were Bharat Jobanputra, Jyotindra K Ashani, his younger cousin Jayesh Shah and Shankar. Our school was The Blue Mountains School in Ooty, above Elk Hill, surrounded by a thick grove (since, much denuded) of Eucalyptus trees that hid the school building from the race-course below and lent its colour to the name of the school.

In keeping with the school's core philosophy grounded on J. Krishnamurti, (translated into pedagogical principles by Gordon Pearce and his team of teachers that included Sardar Mohemmed, David Horsburgh and J.P. Gunawardhane.) the teacher to student ratio was then 1:8.

Excellent reflections on the school:

1. Editorial by its present Director B. J. Krishnan, titled:
J. Krishnamurti, F.G. Pearce and the Blue Mountain School
(Reflections on the 125th Birth Anniversary of the Founder)
Learn Prajana, Live Karuna -Buddha

2. "Blueprint for a life:"
Mukund Padmanabhan looks back fondly at his days in the small and unusual Blue Mountain School, Ooty.
(The Hindu Jan 26, 2013

https://www.bluemountainsschool.com/notice-board/

Note: the photographs were taken in 2007 and are not part of the publication.