Myths of Discovery and Settler Identity: Probing the 'first' Crossing of the Blue Mountains after 200 years

Abstract

While it is tempting to regard maps as re-creations of the landscapes they depict, at root they are aids for navigation. As a lifelong admirer of the charts Myles Dunphy created for fellow bushwalkers of the Blue Mountains, peppered with advice and warnings ('extremely steep', 'bad drinking water'), I have come to accept that departures from verisimilitude are admissible, and often necessary, if the map is to truly serve the traveller. Something analogous applies to works of history, for a history is not a re-creation of the past, but a map for thinking about it. In contrast to the planar two-dimensionality of the cartographer's map, the chart created by the historian must incorporate temporal as well as spatial phenomena. This makes for a map that is more irregular, more idiosyncratic, and more layered than any that a cartographer might design. My purpose here is to map a few of the many ripples caused by a journey through the Blue Mountains of New South Wales in 1813. This journey, this 'first' crossing as it became known erroneously, has been the subject of innumerable iterations, and for a long period served as a locational motif for settler society. So it is a journey through a journey on which we now embark. Show more