The Great Western Road illustrated by Frank Walker FRAHS

2 The Great Western Hoad
as contained in his "Memoirs" is worth recording ,as it gives ap.
exact idea of the names of those who composed the party,of
which Governor Macquarie was the leader.-
»...... .On April £5th of that year (1815)
Governor macquarie drove his car^- iage across
it (the road) ,from Sydney to eathurst.....
accompanied by Mrs wlacquarie. The following
gentlemen composed the Governor's suite;-Mr
Campbell,secretary.,Captain Antill ,Major of
Brigade.,Lieutenant Watts taide de ■campj.,Mr
Oxley,Surveyor General, ,Mr-Meehan,Depmty-Surveyor
General.,Mr Lewin,painter and naturalist,
and Mr G. W.Evans,Deputy-Surveyor of Lands..."
The importance of this expedition,it might
be thought,*oula be heralded with a flourish of trumpets,in th£
press of the day,but beyond a short and concise notice in the
"Gazette",stating the fact of the Governor s departure,and the
names of those who accompanied him,the opportunity for the ais}-
play of a little pardonable rhetoric is not made use of. Probably
optimism on the part of the staff of the Government organ
was not encouraged,even if it existed,and the great possibilities
of the opening of that first Western road,and its effects
on posterity were list sight of.
The Governor in an official letter,which i$
also a G0vernment Proclamation,remarks that "....the tour was
"undertaken for the purpose of being enabled,personally,to
"appreciate the importance of the tract of country lying to th$
"west of the Blue Mountains...." further on he expresses "his
astonishment and regret that amongst so large a population no
one appeared within the first twenty-five years of the establishment
of this settlement,possessed of sufficient energy of
mind to induce him fully to explore a passage over these mountains".
This was rather rough on the courageous men who had
already made repeated attempts to accomplish this very thing,
but had failed. The Governor certainly makes reference to bass
and Caley,two of thse very men,but he seems to have been surprisingly
ignorant of the very existence of such men as tfarral
lier,Tench,^rose,Wilson,and others,not to speak of Governor
Phillip,to whom the problem of the mountains,and what lay behind
them,appealed very early in his career.
Macquarie s journey from day to day is very
graphically told in Cox s Memoirs,which contained the text of
the above mentioned proclamation. At most of the halting place*;
Lewin,the painter,secured lasting mementoes of the Governor's
visit,and thse,in the form of a series of exquisite paintings,
now in the possession of the Antill family,at Picton,are of th