Published Resources Details

Conference Paper

Author
Scott, David
Title
Routing Ligar - developing a shortcut to the Kiandra Goldrush
In
Australasian Engineering Heritage Conference: AEHC 2022
Imprint
Engineers Australia, Barton, ACT, 2023, pp. 49-61
Url
https://search.informit.org/doi/10.3316/informit.836782438205160
Subject
Chronological Classification 1788-1900 Applied Sciences Engineering and Technology
Abstract

Within the Snowy Mountains "Ligar's Route" is a local legend - purportedly one of the most famous migratory tracks across Southeast Australia, developed by the Victorian Surveyor-general Charles Whybrow Ligar to provide Victorian miners on the Ovens Goldfield direct access to the Kiandra Goldfield, high in the Snowy Mountains of NSW. At the onset of winter 1860, the expectation arose that there would be 100,000 miners arriving at Kiandra in the Spring, mostly from Victoria and South Australia. These two colonies immediately despatched their Surveyors-general to identify the 'most practical routes' for their colonists to travel to the diggings and return home with their golden wealth. Major Arthur Freeling of South Australia took the approach of following established shipping routes and roads, townships and staging posts, to ensure safety and ease of travel for his colonists. Ligar took an alternate approach, avoiding established networks. Supposedly it was a shortcut, running from Beechworth to the Upper Murray and then across the heart of the mountains. The mapping of a road suitable for drays along this line was heralded in the Victorian and NSW press, but fresh research indicates the purpose of Ligar's Route was far more political than practical, and that Ligar himself only travelled part of the route prior to announcing its success. Timing was everything, the truth flexible, but why? This presentation will describe the socio-political struggle between NSW and Victoria in which the route was established, the line of the route and the potential for the highest sections of it through the Kosciuszko National Park to be followed today.

Source
cohn 2023

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"... the rengitj, as a visible mark or imprint on the land, is characterised as a place of origin, the repository of all names, as well as a kind of mapped visual expression of the connection between people and places which is to be carried out in the temporal sequence of the journey." Fanca Tamisari (1998) 'Body, Vision and Movement: In the footprints of the ancestors'. Oceania 68(4) p260