Tim the Yowie Man: Roadside Treasures

I'd usually drive on to one of the cafes in Goulburn for a cuppa, but my break to routine proves to be a real eye-opener.

After parking the Yowie Mobile at the end of the rest area, I take a short stroll alongside the Towrang Creek, which despite recent rain, is running at barely a trickle. While picking my way along its banks, overgrown with weeds, less than a hundred metres along I'm suddenly confronted by a most unexpected site ahead a handsome dressed sandstone bridge looms.

At first glance you can tell this is no hastily erected crossing, it is expertly designed and crafted.

A small sign on its southern approach reveals its significance "it's one of the oldest convict built bridges in Australia and comprises part of the construction of Surveyor General, Sir T.L. Mitchell's Great South Road."

Wow! I can't quite believe my eyes. Hidden from the sight of passing traffic, I've driven along this stretch of highway hundreds of times, completely unaware of this historic treasure. Unless you go for a wander up the creek, you can't even see it from the rest area. In fact, during my visit an elderly couple walk their poodle in the grassy flats adjacent to the creek, oblivious that they are only a stone's throw away from a significant heritage site.

The sign explains that the segmental sandstone bridge, dating to 1839 along with a series of stone culverts located further along Mitchell's 'Great South Road', was the work of convicts based at nearby Towrang Stockades, which "from 1833 to 1843, was the chief penal camp in the southern district of NSW".

What's more, the sign points out that on the other side of the highway are the remains of the stockades, which it says are "amongst the best-remaining relics of penal road gangs anywhere in the country".

Champing at the bit to find out more, I carefully drive across the highway and park at the corner of Towrang Road from where the entrance to the former stockade is just a short walk along the fence line. The gate, which although located less than 20 metres from the busy northbound lanes of the Hume is completely concealed from passing traffic. Little wonder I'd never noticed it before.

With all the zest of a five year old running to a playground after school, I scurry through the paddock to explore, not one but three marked sites. The first is a fenced off area, the original site of the wooden and rubble quarters for the troopers who guarded between 100 and 250 convicts. Life was tough for the convicts, who dressed in yellow and black uniforms and slept in transportable 'convict boxes' on wooden wheels. Each provided space for 10 convicts, packed in like sardines with a central chain passing through their leg irons to secure them at night. They each had just one blanket, even on sub-zero nights, which are a common occurrence in these parts. One can only envisage what happened if one convict woke up and needed to go to the toilet.

Then there were the rations, which according to some published accounts were so bad that desperate convicts attempted to kill each other in the hope they'd be sent back to gaol in Sydney where the food was much better, and I imagine the nights not as cold.

Just another 50 metres or so away and partly built into the rocky banks of the Wollondilly River is the stockade's powder magazine. Blasting powder used for road cuttings and splitting stone for buildings was held here for safety, and no doubt also to be out of reach of passing bushrangers.

Incredibly (and with the help of restoration work in 1975) the magazine is still in-tact and you can enter at your own risk. I peer inside, deciding not to venture in. While the explosives are long gone, the main danger here is roof collapse and despite my curiosity I'm not keen to join a number of soldiers and their family who perished here and are buried just over the next rise.

The faded sign at the lonely cemetery explains that unlike the soldiers', the graves of convicts were not marked and that, "maybe, nearby are the graves of two men killed by blast exploding and others recorded as drowning."

Leaning on the fence which keeps grazing sheep off the graves, I contemplate what it must have been like here for the road gangs all those years ago. One thing is for sure, the sound of whips cracking and chains clanging has long been replaced by the constant rumble of the thousands of trucks and cars which zoom past here every day.

Sure, the alignment of the Great South Road may have changed over years, but with the Hume Highway now one of our country's major transportation routes, the legacy of the chain gang at the Towrang Stockades lives on.

Towrang Stockades: Allow at least an hour to explore. The 1839 bridge and culverts are readily accessible by walking up the creek at the end of the turning bay in the Derrick VC Rest Area, located on the southbound lanes of the Hume Highway (M31), about 11 kilometres north of Goulburn. The stockade site, powder magazine and graves are much harder to access. When travelling north on the Hume Highway (M31) park in the dirt area on the corner of the highway and Towrang Road and walk north along the fence line for a hundred metres until you find a gate emblazoned with the words 'Enter at Own Risk' (it's on private property but genuine visitors are currently welcome).

Warning: Do not attempt to walk across the highway, it's too dangerous.

Tim's Tip: Call in at The Goulburn Visitor Information Centre (201 Sloane Streeet) and pick-up a brochure on the stockades before visiting. While it's far from Goulburn's premiere tourist attraction, Jessica Price, coordinator of marketing and events at Goulburn Mulwaree Council, reports: "It is definitely rewarding for those that make the trek, because it truly is a little-known and unique site."

Don't miss: Artist Ken Kenchington's impression of what the Towrang Stockades would have looked like in the late 1830s. It's a must-see at the Convicts, Crime and Convictions Goulburn's Judicial History exhibition, on show until April 23 at the St Clair Villa Museum at 318 Sloane Street, Goulburn. Open Thursday-Sunday, 10am-4pm. Free admission, donations welcome.

Did You Know? Convicts at the stockades were subject to rigid daily routines and were flogged 25-30 times for trivial offences such as talking to passing travellers, or up to 100 times for absconding. The chief flogger was a fearsome man named Billy O'Rourke, who according to Goulburn Historian, Roger Bayley "revelled in his work".

"An ex-convict nick-named 'Black Francis' occasionally assisted O'Rourke in wielding the Cat o' Nine Tails," reports Bayley. "That is until he was found mysteriously murdered near the Run O' Waters Creek, not far from where it now flows beneath Goulburn's southern exit from the Hume Highway."

Don't miss: Next week's column will uncover some unexpected treasures located alongside (and under) some of Canberra's busiest roads.

The Towrang Stockades aren't the only roadside relic dating from convict times on the drive between Canberra and Sydney. Running under the Federal Highway (M23) at the northern end of Lake George is a curious canal constructed by convicts in the mid-1830s.

The canal, the brainchild of early landholder Terence Aubrey Murray, was built to channel fresh water from Lake George into the stagnant swamp on his property Ajamatong, north of the lake, now known as Murray's Lagoon.

Murray's men toiled relentlessly for months, cutting buy hand the five metre-deep, four metre-wide and 50-metre long canal through what was an ancient river terrace, even lining the lower two-metres of the canal with stone blocks carried from nearby ranges.

However, its construction proved to be a futile exercise, for according to one version of the story, when the canal was completed water from the swamp flowed into the lake instead of the reverse direction.

Cryptic Clue: Beware walking over this 'bridge' especially if wine tasting.

Degree of difficulty: Medium.

Last week: Congratulations to John Foster, of Googong, who was first to correctly identify last week's photo, sent in by Graeme Barrow, of Hackett, as stairs leading up to the lookout over the Captains Flat mine. "It overlooks the town and one of the explanatory plaques is visible at the top of the steps," reports Foster.

It was a case of good timing for Foster who reports, "This was the first time I have been early enough to send you an answer as I usually look at the photo quiz much later in the day."

The clue, which stumped many readers related to a bull after which some say the former mining town, located about an hour's drive to Canberra's south-east, is named. According to folklore, in the 1800s drovers in the area noticed that one of their bullock team, nicknamed, "Captain" was often found grazing well away from other beasts, on the "flat", grassy paddocks near the Molonglo River.

How to enter: Email your guess along with your name and address to timtheyowieman@bigpond.com. The first email sent after 10am, Saturday March 24, 2017, with the correct answer wins a double pass to Dendy cinemas.

CONTACT TIM: Email: timtheyowieman@bigpond.com or Twitter: @TimYowie or write c/- The Canberra Times, 9 Pirie Street, Fyshwick. You can see a selection of past columns online.