Australian Town and Country Journal at KellyGang 20/7/1872 (3)
The quality of the land about Kimo both in the flats and above is very good. Even in that warm weather when grass in lower parts of the country was parched up, every thing here looked fresh and green. The cabbage thistle grows luxuriantly in the lower flats, and is regarded as a boon to the cattle. Proceeding on my journey in company with Mr Robinson, about a mile from the residence we came to a spur from which we had a refreshing view of the Tumut Ranges, and other mountains clad in purple in the distance. Three miles further we came to Old Kimo , the station homestead of the previous owner. Poplar trees, shrubs, and hedges surround the premises. A good orchard of two acres was in the rear. In the distance Kimo Hill was visible. A stretch of hills running from here to Gundagai (four miles) I was told were called the Kimo Ranges.
The road continued along the river bank, winding in and out, through some pleasant cuttings in the hill side, and on the river bank. Presently Gundagai appeared in sight. It deserves a separate chapter.
Towns and Villages of New South Wales.
FORBES
THIS township is, perhaps, best known to the general public of this colony as the once famous Lachlan Gold fields, the population of which ranged from six to sixteen thousand, who realised the usual average of our speculative miners, viz., about one in every five hundred getting a prize although very many of the remaining four hundred and ninety-nine obtaining a good living. There are still a few diggers on the outside of the town ship working and obtaining a living as miners, and very many have hopes that other rushes will yet be made to this, now, old alluvial diggings.
Forbes must command a good trade at all times, if only from the large squattages around it, and the extensive "overlanding," as it is called, constantly going on -cattle and sheep ever on the move from the fattening stations of the squatters lying north-westerly, as also from Queensland, to our rather absurdly protective neighbours in Victoria.
This township is situated on the northern bank of the extensive and important Lachlan River, which empties itself into the Murrumbidgee, after a course of about 750 miles from its sources. It waters an immense tract of pastoral and agricultural land; and if the reader will turn to the map of the colony he will find that this river separates fourteen or fifteen counties, and while passing through some thirteen townships, its tributary rivers and creeks number over twenty, and therefore it must drain an immense tract of country, much of which the traveller often wishes could be travelled by "Macleay's tramway," instead of as now by horses, so much of it being on plains and other low, flat, swampy ground, with a clay that stops your trotting-horse after a few hours rain.
The town is nearly surrounded by a dry creek, which however valuable to the miners when gold was found in quantities, has been very troublesome, from not having bridges, and the crossing places being made worse than nature formed them, by the various floods occurring at intervals of a few years, and the traffic constantly passing; the various governments only doing what they were worried into, and the people not doing for themselves what they expected from the Government, no direction posts, nor cleared roads! so that in times of flood, from the overflow of the useful but treacherous river, it is next to impossible to travel.
Forbes is south-west of Sydney, and is about 230 miles distant, via Orange, and about five miles less, via Carcoar and Cowra, It has several important outlets, the principal being the Grenfell and Young roads, about forty miles to either place; the road to Orange, about eighty miles - the Canowindra one being off this; that to Wellington, passing several stations. There is also the road to Cowra, some sixty miles good travelling road in dry weather, and wanting but few repairs in some swampy places, and a strong and cheap bridge some twelve miles from Cowra. It is on this road that the son of our late distinguished visitor, Anthony Trollope, has a sheep station; and besides others, Mr West, Mr Grant, and Mrs Newell, who has an inn on the station, where the traveller is made as comfortable as possible, considering the very few persons travelling on this road. There is a second inn, kept by a native of Denmark, some twenty-five miles from Cowra, at which the traveller's horse can always depend upon having a good bait. The village or hamlet is called Coolagan.
Forbes is built upon rising ground, but not sufficiently high to keep the water from its broad streets in times of flood, many of the stores and inns being partially submerged on those occasions. There is nothing attractive in its appearance, rather the contrary, and such must be the case while the ruins of the once prosperous stores and hotels are standing. The floods have removed portions of some of the buildings (now the residences of nobody), assisted by the wind and rain, together with active boys, who distinguish themselves by making whole panes of glass in such places remarkably scarce, the high weatherboard facias being, in many cases, "all that's left," the roof, sides, and bucks being absent.
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