The Travelling Stock Reserves
    of the Wamboin/Bywong Area

This is the best of the three local TSRs, by a country mile! It is 7.1 ha in area, Reserve no. R25432, at 1631 Sutton Road, Sutton, on the western side Sutton Road. It was notified as a Travelling Stock and Camping Reserve in the Gazette of 13 Feb 1897, then much larger than now: ‘about 140 acres’, i.e. 56 ha, and labelled as TSR No. 51 under the former Yass Rural Lands Protection Board. The Reserve is on both sides of Amungula Creek (formerly known as Roadside Creek and before that Doughboy Creek), and to the west is a privately owned nature reserve. An unlocked gate opposite 1618 Sutton Road facilitates access to the Reserve.

The first family to settle there, perhaps in the 1840s, was William Gambell (born c. 1800 at Bath, Somerset, England; died 08 Jul 1891 at Sutton, NSW) ‘convict, bootmaker, labourer, settler’. (Various spellings, including Gambel, Gambell, Gamble, etc., have been used.) His wife was Mary Dardas/Dardis (born c. 1806 at Allenstown, Meath, Ireland; died 1873 at Queanbeyan, NSW) ‘convict’. The Gambell family subsequently took up a number of selections in the area, commencing with Edward Gambell’s 40-acre Conditional Purchase in 1862. The late Les Reardon reported that the severe bushfire in the area in 1946 burned out the wooden markers of the family’s graves on the western side of Amungula Creek (Reardon 1970), but Fisher (2001, p. 11) states that the Gambell family graves were, at that stage, located at portion 88, Parish of Goorooyarroo (on Sutton Road, Sutton). The nearby Gambell Road, Sutton, was constructed and named in 1998.

The Reserve is classified as Category 2, ‘TSRs that are used for travelling stock, emergency management or biosecurity purposes, but they are also important and used for other reasons, e.g. biodiversity conservation, First Nations Peoples’ cultural heritage or recreational purposes’, owing to its high conservation value as a biodiversity hotspot. The spring wildflower display (including Yam Daisies Microseris walteri) is a treat, and the venerable Apple Boxes (Eucalyptus bridgesiana) along the creek are a special feature. It also contains some scarred trees that may well be Aboriginal Culturally Modified Trees.

This is a somewhat sad TSR, lacking its former positive attributes. It was notified in the Gazette on 12 September 1881 as a Camping and Water Reserve, no. 125, ‘area about 60 acres’, i.e. 24 ha. It is now TSR R1002475, Category 5 (‘TSR that are no longer used or valued for any of the above reasons’), just 3.6 ha. The Reserve was labelled as TSR No. 38 under the former Braidwood Rural Lands Protection Board. It is on both sides of Bungendore Road, Bywong: three triangles separated by roads, with the eastern triangle’s southern tip at the Gum Flat Creek crossing, and the north-western triangle’s southern tip where Emu Flat Lane joins Bungendore Road. The eastern part (2 ha) is difficult to access owing to its fencing; it is a paddock with few biodiversity values. The southern segment (0.6 ha) is largely pine trees. The north-western segment (1 ha) contains a small area with a surprisingly high diversity of native biota between the weed plants.

Schofields TSR is named after the Schofield family who farmed there (Emu Flat) from the mid-1800s, including two selections taken up there in 1883 by James Schofield (senior) (b. 8 Jan 1807 Mossley, Lancashire, England, d. 14 Mar 1901 Emu Flat, Bywong), convict and bootmaker. In 1848 he married Maria Ablett (b. 1815 Richmond NSW, d. 08 Jan1884 at Creekborough) in Queanbeyan. It is reported that ‘The ferocious epidemic of scarlet fever in 1876 claimed three children of James Schofield, the bootmaker, within a fortnight’ (Lea-Scarlett 1968, p. 159).

James senior’s son James William Schofield (1853–1933) and his wife Catherine Duncan (1856-1925) inherited the property from James’ father. Lindsay (2008, p. 604) advises that ‘The place of James and Catherine Schofield in the history of the Bywong community is remembered in the naming of Schofield Road in their honour’. The road was officially named in 1998.

The Bungendore Road bridge over Gum Flat Creek, Bywong, is known as Schofields Bridge. Note the nearby Schofield Hill and Schofield Trig. Members of the Schofield family still live in our area.

The location of this TSR is somewhat enigmatic. First, it is TSR R1001963, 8.92 ha (22 acres), category 2: ‘TSRs that are used for travelling stock, emergency management or biosecurity purposes, but they are also important and used for other reasons, e.g. biodiversity conservation, Aboriginal cultural heritage or recreational purposes.’

The reserve was notified in the NSW Gazette on 20 May 1873 as a ‘Reserve from sale for the camping of travelling stock’, C.R. no. 33, parish of Wamboin, ‘on the Gundaroo and Bungendore Road’. At that stage it comprised 35 acres (14 ha). Today the TSR occupies only the southern side of Bungendore Road at the foot of the Lake George Range, and retains 63% of its original area; the remainder formerly lay on the northern side of the road.

Within its bounds is the well-known swimming place, originally the Smiths Gap gravel pit, long referred to locally as ‘the quarry’.

The reserve derives its name from Smiths Gap itself. That designation was in local use from at least the 1860s, though not formally gazetted until 2019. The road through the Gap—known in earlier days as the Gundaroo Road—was opened in late 1870 or early 1871. The Gap commemorates William John Smith (1824–1896) and his family, who held selections at the top of the Gap.

The enigma alluded to above is this: the land was reserved for the overnight camping of travelling stock, and their drovers. But it is predominantly steep, rising sharply up the sides of the Gap. I cannot imagine how it could function as a TSR. Perhaps—and this is purely speculation—a draftsman at the Lands Office in Sydney thought it would be a good location for travelling stock to camp, on a creek at the foot of the range, not realising that the reserve actually rises up the side of the range!

If you are keen and fit enough to visit, grab your trekking poles, park at the swimming hole cum quarry, and walk up the dirt road on its nor-western side. You will soon reach the western boundary fence and (with difficulty) can follow it NW to parallel Bungendore Road. Despite the high prevalence of blackberries, serrated tussock, and other weeds, the TSR has some biodiversity values, with 60 bird species recorded from there in eBird. On my recent visit, a pair of wedge-tailed eagles was gliding along the Lake George Range above the TSR.