Hartley Mist

After the original explorers crossed the Blue Mountains in 1813, the authorities quickly got about the task of building a road which followed the route that Blaxland Wentworth and Lawson had pioneered. The man in charge of the project was William Cox and that first and very hurriedly constructed road came to be known as Cox'x Rd. It served as the principal route west and out to the Bathurst Plains from 1815 until 1823, by which time it was realised that the increasing volume of traffic could never be handled by the horrendously steep grades during the descent from the Mt York Ridge to the Hartley Valley below.

In 1824 a more gentle descent had been constructed and it became known as Lawson's Long Alley. By 1832 the Victoria Pass had been engineered and so the main route west changed yet again. This morning, Tony (one of my companions from the recent Sydney trek) joined me to walk the old Lawson's Long Alley route which has, by now, largely returned to nature. The two hour jaunt took us through some of the most beautiful country imaginable. Here we see the last of the morning mist ascending from the trees in this neck of the valley.