Adventurers - Oberon

Barrallier, the first adventurer in Kanangra-Boyd

Francis Barrallier made three expeditions to cross the Blue Mountains. The second attempt, which almost succeeded, took him to an area now known as Kanangra Walls, in the Kanangra-Boyd National Park.

His journals document encounters with herds of up to 200 wild cattle. These animals had made it into the wilderness and across the Great Dividing Range long before white man managed to do the same.

During his travels he heard the “coo-ee’ call of the Aborigines, one of the first recordings of the call. He wrote about eating an animal which he called a monkey and the local aborigines called ‘colo’. We now know this animal was a koala.

Barrallier’s second expedition began on 4 November, 1802. He kept a detailed journal, in which he kept notes of his experiences and made a sketch of his journey.

As on his previous attempt he proceeded westward along the Tonalli River to Tonalli Peak. There is speculation that he made his way to Yerranderie, and from there to the Kowmung Valley and along to Christys Creek. Two of his party looked down from Sullen Tor, near Cambadge Spire, only to declare the way impassable. In fact, the ridge upon which they stood, and the nearby Boyd Range, could have provided them passage over the mountains to Oberon. Instead Barrallier and his men decided to follow the rugged Christys Creek Valley, until they came to a stop at the foot of a waterfall. With very little food and an exhausted team Barrallier admitted defeat. He reflected on this in his journal:

“The courage of my men was entirely abated, and nothing but the orders for the return journey would dispel their melancholy…After having cut a cross of St Andrew on a tree to indicate the terminus of my second journey, I returned by the same route as I had come…”
 

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