116 Australian GeographicPAINTING CREDIT PAGE 114, IAN HANSON, 1985, COURTESY JERVIS BAY MARITIME MUSEUM COLLECTIONG
UM TREES LINE the roadside, their crowns
shaking back and forth like giant pom-poms
in the stiff southerly, enticing us along this
strip of fresh bitumen that slices through a
vast swathe of the Southern Tablelands of
New South Wales. Unlike the ominous clouds
that rush overhead, we’re in no hurry.
We’re travelling along the Wool Road, a historic 1841 bullock
route hacked out of the ‘new count r y’ by 70 conv ict s to ca r t wool
from the prosperous Monaro and Goulburn districts to Jervis Bay
for shipping to Sydney and beyond.
Already an hour on the road, however, and the only stock
we’ve spotted are grazing cattle and a few horses galloping along
a rickety old fenceline...oh, and a couple of alpacas sheltering
in a gully. With no sign of a ram or ewe within cooee, we’re
starting to think we may have taken a wrong turn.
Thankfully, on the outskirts of Nerriga (population 75, on
a good day), a sign swinging in the wind outside a tiny timber
cottage, emblazoned with the word “museum”, catches our
attention. Stepping on the brakes, we pull up in a pall of dust.
We scurry into the cottage that, until 1974, housed the village’s
only school. Although not as fi erce as on the exposed plains,
the southerly does a good job of slamming the door shut behind us.
“Aha, the Wool Road,” says Josette Allester, a cheery volun-
teer who greets us with a knowing smile and a nod. She ushers
us towards the back wall of the museum to a display of images
of the route before and after its 2010 upgrade.
Josette confi rms we’re defi nitely on the right road, “ just 170
years after its heyday”.“Less than 10 years after the Wool Road opened up, the
lobbying power of businesses on the alternative, but longer,
road to Sydney meant the wool was no longer taken down
to Jervis Bay but instead hauled overland to Sydney,” Josette
explains.
“After becoming virtually obsolete, the road experienced a
renaissance following the discovery of gold in the area in the
1850s and ’60s.”Next to the Nerriga Old School
House Museum is an abandoned
sawmill, complete with a number of
surrounding workers’ cottages that
are now included in the museum.Bruce Temple, a lifelong Nerriga local, sits in the very spot he occupied
in the 1950s when he attended school in the building that now houses
the Nerriga Old School House Museum.