Excursion - Rokeby, Cambridge, Sandford

Publication No. 303   Size: A4   Weight: 350 grams

EARLY TRANSPORT ROUTES

The early traveller via Kangaroo Bay had two routes that they could take, one led through Cambridge to Sorell and Richmond (the old coach road behind Uplands, vie either the 'Upper Ferry' at Pittwater Bluff, and the other 'Lower Ferry' to Carlton, (eight and half miles instead of twenty-two.) Ferry charges were expensive owing to the distance across the water. The Lower being the less expensive involved riding or walking the length of Seven Mile Beach and crossing by the Lower or 'Dodges Ferry', (operated by one of our Norfolk Island Settlers.)

Kangaroo Point to Sorell: Old main road via Mt. Rumney. (was known as Half Way Hill Road, now Tunnel Hill) to Cambridge, then on first causeway to Midway Point, and lastly on the second causeway to Sorell. Before the causeway (1874) there were two ferries to carry travellers to Sorell. [Clarence Historical Site Survey Part 1 & 11 by Audrey Hudspeth with L. Scripps & P.Macfie)

James E Calder's sketch of his walk, in 1880, from Kangaroo Bay to Rokeby gives a very good insight into what this area was like in the last century.

EXTRACTS FROM JAMES E CALDER'S SKETCH MERCURY 2 APRIL 1880 For a trip to Cambridge, you take the Richmond road from Kangaroo Bay; but as there are two roads leading away from the landing place, the one leading to Clarence Plains, the other to Cambridge,

'  …. after  leaving  the  landing  at  Kangaroo  Bay,  and  the  estate,  called  in  my  younger days, Claremont, behind you - you descend towards the vale and village of Rokeby. Further on the highway approaches pretty close to the sea. From here, after passing Stanfield's windmill, I should recommend the traveller to cross the isthmus called Muddy Plains Neck, and, after a ride or stroll along the sandy beach, a long look over the glorious expanse of Norfolk Bay.'

'It was 4 o'clock in the afternoon when I took passage to Kangaroo Bay in the ferry boat "Success", where after landing I went on of the public conveyances to the Horse Shoe Inn, which is nearly 5 miles from the landing place; and here I will remained for the night.'

'In looking around me, as we rattled along, we passed through I noticed that there had not been much clearing done since I had been here two score years ago. The crops here are not heavy; but a change takes place about half way to the Horse Shoe Inn when cultivation now becomes more and more scant, and for some considerable distance, disappears altogether.

On arriving at the Inn with plenty of daylight still remaining I strolled out to the newly-erected stone building that I had spied out soon after alighting from the conveyance I had travelled by.

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