Proposal to transform an Aboriginal walkway into the Great North Road

Proposal to transform an Aboriginal walkway into the Great North Road. After Irish convict John Macdonald, is assigned to Robert Crawford at Ellalong (east of Wollombi) in 1820, he becomes friendly with local Aboriginal people and learns from them a way to reach the Hawkesbury River from the Hunter Valley. This becomes known as “MacDonald’s Line” and ran north-east from the Hawkesbury across Mangrove Creek, through the Watagan Mountains and beside Lake Macquarie, before turning north into the Hunter Valley over Brunkerville Gap (near Ellalong). Some influential settlers wanted this to be the route of the Great North Road. In 1828, Captain Dumaresq, Surveyor of Roads and Bridges, arranges to have the line surveyed and sends assistant surveyor Jonathan Warner out with MacDonald to report back. (Convict Trail Project – Great North Road: John Macdonald)