Backward Glance: Early roads and tracks of the ranges (Part 1)

This week we focus on the rough scrub district on the Blackall Range, within the area of the then Caboolture Divisional Board, where our Picture Sunshine Coast collection tells a story of progression of early roads and tracks.

In the days of the first settlers, the higher heavily timbered scenic region was all known as the Blackall Range.

The towns of the Blackall Range did not connect directly across the range but had an association with the townships directly below due to rough logging transport routes.

The Blackall Range was named by surveyor CS Bradbury in 1874 to honour the Governor of Queensland from 1864 to 1871, Samuel Wensley Blackall.

The old Highlands/Balmoral District as it was known was the rich uplands of the Blackall Range and was once a part of both Landsborough Shire and Maroochy Shire previously both a part of the Caboolture Divisional Board.

The Montville to Highlands district was situated where the boundaries of the two shires of Landsborough and Maroochy met, not far from Balmoral Lookout.

The development of country roads was a slow process because of the small income derived from the large expenditure required for the roads to be constructed.

Eventually the Main Roads Commission provided money, apart from shire funds, so that a sound and progressive program of road construction could proceed.

However it was many years before the state of the roads improved.

Portion 1303, originally held by selector Campbell, was divided into almost two equal divisions and is where Balmoral was reached where a track branched towards Montville from the old Maleny track.

In 1882, James Campbell acquired four selections on the high ranges – Ellamore, Bald Knob, Balmoral and Ellerslie each being 160 acres.

All of these selections linked up to what became later the Maleny Landsborough Road.

Balmoral Road is named after Campbell’s timber selection Balmoral.

Campbell at that time had a saw mill in the small township of Campbellville to process timber for the Brisbane market.

It was situated near the junction of Mellum and Coochin creeks, now a part of Glass House Mountains region.

With the advent of the railway, timber getters were no longer constrained by the need to float logs away and sawmills sprung up near railway stations.

Richard Remington selected land west of the present day Balmoral Road near the junction of Montville Palmwoods Road in 1889.

Shoots or “schutes” like Remington built were used to catapult the timber down the steep slopes to where bullock teams snigged the logs to transport them to waterways.

Once the North Coast Railway came through in the early 1890s, many farmers in the old Highlands/Balmoral district used pack horses due to the steep terrain to get their produce to the railway stations.

Others walked their produce out to the station closest to their farm.

The roads were so bad that many people travelled on foot and their main means of transportation was by pack horse or horse with slide.

Later Harry Bray and others closer to Mooloolah used to walk cattle or pigs out to Mooloolah Station for transportation. Bray’s Road is named after him.

North Coast Rail opened an important transport route from Brisbane to Caboolture on June 11, 1888.

The second section of rail was from Caboolture to Landsborough (Mellum Creek) which opened on February 1, 1890 and section three Landsborough to Yandina was completed on January 1, 1891.

Landsborough was the first transport link to townships such as Maleny and Mooloolah and Montville connected down the tracks to Palmwoods and Mapleton transportation connected to Nambour.

When the Queensland Government opened the Maroochy district to selection in 1868 and 1887, David Mackay selected 648 freehold acres on the southern side of Eudlo Creek.

In 1890, the Commissioner of Railways acquired a section of this land for the North Coast Railway line.

There was a siding known as Eudlo but no township in 1890.

That area was surveyed for allotments in around 1912.

William and Mary Gerrard’s Lookout is situated on the Blackall Range between Maleny and Montville.

William Gerrard selected his property in 1890 and grew strawberries which were transported by pack horse to the rail.

The official opening of the Gerrard Lookout was by chairman of Maroochy Shire Cr Eddie DeVere.

Nearby Balmoral Lookout gives commanding views of the Maleny region.

Montville (Razorback) encompasses a part of the eastern escarpment of the Blackall Range, west of Palmwoods.

The first settler in Montville (Razorback) was Thorvald Weitemeyer in June 1887.

In 1883, the government surveyor, Alfred Delisser, was commissioned to mark out a road along the summit of the Blackall Range.

This road needed to become a permanent thoroughfare for the settlers on the hill.

While passing through Razorback, now Montville, he described a rough track on Dixon’s selection heading north towards Nambour (Namba Station).

That track is now known as Phillips Road.

The track at the time led down the hillside to what was known as Cobbs Camp, now Woombye.

On November 23, 1929, a new main road from Montville to Palmwoods was officially opened by Godfrey Morgan MLA.

It was reported in the early 1930s that there were excellent seasonal conditions in the area.

While journeying along the main roads, a number of farms could be seen, hidden away by uncleared patches of scrub or forest and many acres under cultivation.

A gate or a by-road indicated that an entrance has been made to some area and when inquiring it was found that several farms existed in these isolated places during a trip along the coastal side of the Blackall Range.

Make sure you grab a copy of next week’s edition to read part 2 of this important part of our region’s history.

Thanks to Sunshine Coast Council’s Heritage Library Officers for the words and Picture Sunshine Coast for the images.

_In 2017 we celebrate the 50th Anniversary of the Naming of the Sunshine Coast. For more information on this milestone anniversary visit www.sunshinecoast.qld.gov.au/fifty_

Image captions:

Hero image: Harry Gunn carting pineapples in wooden packing cases from Montville to Palmwoods, 1914.

Carousel images:

Image 1: Palmwoods- Montville bus enroute to Palmwoods past a landslide which occured on the road at Horse-shoe bend, ca 1950.

Image 2: Work gang having break during construction of Montville-Palmwoods Road, ca 1929.

Image 3: Gympie train at Landsborough Railway Station, 1908.

Image 4: Horseshoe bend on the Montville-Palmwoods Road, ca 1935.

Image 5: Harry Gunn on the Razorback road, taking a wagon load of fruit from his Montville orchard to the Palmwoods Railway Station, ca 1912.