May 11, 1813: crossing Australia’s Blue Mountains

As the new city around Sydney Cove boomed in the early 19th century, it quickly hit an impediment to its growth. On this day in 1813, a group of Australian explorers, hoping to find new farmland, began a quest for a route across the seemingly impenetrable Blue Mountains.

The men – Gregory Blaxland, Lieutenant William Lawson, and William Charles Wentworth – took four servants, four horses, and five dogs through the thick forest of eucalyptus trees. (Chemicals released by the trees often gave the mountains a blue haze, hence their name.)

By following the ridges, rather than the valleys, the party took just 21 days to traverse the mountains. The image above is a later depiction of the crew seeing the Hartley Valley for the first time from Mount York.

Governor Lachland Macquarie would soon commission a road across the ridge, and ten years later, gold would be discovered near Bathurst, the first inland town in Australia. The government managed to suppress that finding until 1851, when a gold rush began in earnest.

For more on this historic expedition, visit Blue Mountains Australia.