View of Towamba bridge looking up river. Building centre background is Towamba Police Station. Buildings in centre are the Towamba Hotel (large buildings). Building in foreground is the Towamba General Store.

In 1843, Benjamin Boyd initiated a survey to open up a route from the coast south of Eden, crossing the coastal ranges through to Cathcart on the Monaro (then known as Maneroo.) This was to be the main route bringing future produce from his vast holdings there. The road in part followed the Towamba River through rugged, steep-sided ranges and rich river flats, to the settlements of Towamba and Burragate from where it became known as Big Jack Mountain Road closely following the river through the village of Rocky Hall in the foothills of the escarpment, until it snaked away to climb the steep ascent to the tablelands.
By the early 1860's, with Boyd just a memory, many large leases along this route had been sub divided and the settlements of Burragate, Towamba and Pericoe attracted farmers as land became available. Much of the land in the valley was in its natural state and these pioneers set about with hand axe and crosscut saw, horse and bullock, clearing enough trees to give them space to grow grass and crops for their cattle and horses, and build basic dwellings with the felled timber.
While the husband was clearing the land or away with horse and bullock teams, the role of the woman quickly became one of wide variation. Her realm spread over both house and farm. She was wife, mother, cook, dairy hand and farm worker. With the nearest hospital a day's buggy ride away, she became a skilled nurse and if necessary, midwife.
For their own survival these early settlers grew maize for stock feed and market, milked cows, fattened pigs, salted and smoked meat, made butter and bread and preserved fruit and vegetables from their gardens. They worked long and hard to survive in this remote south-east corner of New South Wales.
As the coastal villages grew and demand for produce increased, many valley farmers worked off their properties cutting sleepers, stripping wattle bark and trapping rabbits for their skins. Some families share-farmed for larger land holders or kept a small dairy herd of their own. Either way, they hand milked herds varying in size from eight to over one hundred cows. Everyone helped, even the children before and after school. There were animals to feed, cows to milk, cream to be separated and milk vats and buckets to be scoured.
These small dairies produced cream for the butter factories dotted throughout the district, and pigs, fattened on corn and the separated milk, were driven over the mountain to the bacon factories on the coast.
The route from the tablelands to the coast saw men and their teams slipping in mud or raising clouds of dust, long leather whips and colourful language into the air, as they drove their teams of horses and bullocks over the rough mountain road. Drays laden with wattle bark, wool and sleepers were hauled to the wharves, unloaded onto coastal steamers and shipped to the cities and overseas. On the return trip, produce of all types was brought back and delivered to the remote inland settlements.
These communities endured the cycle of bush fires, drought and floods. They faced and conquered the difficulties of their isolation by simply not being overwhelmed by them. 'You either did it or you didn't survive,' was their explanation. 'That's just the way it was.'
In the small settlements of Burragate, Pericoe and Towamba, remnants of this way of life continued into the 1960's where the children, whose parents and grandparents pioneered this remote area, were then in their seventies and eighties. This is an area where today the nearest sealed road is twenty-six kilometres away, where the electricity was not connected until the early 1950's and only spread according to the availability of spare cash needed to hook up to the system. For some families modernisation was a late arrival.
These interviews are a revealing and personal account of a way of life that has mostly passed from living memory. These men and women were not famous in their time and their formal education was basic, but they had the strength of character and the practical know-how to survive and raise families in this remote area. These were ordinary people with a strong sense of community who faced difficult circumstances that today would seem insurmountable. They were the stuff of pioneers. This is their story.