The area where My Grandfather bought property in the early 1900’s was long surveyed into blocks and roads marked on Maps, even if not constructed. The unformed roadway that ran past our house was one of them. My grandfather first bought a house and land package of 20 acres, next he brought four acres or so across the Watson’s Creek, and then 12 & 20 acres next door and Dad finally added the final 20 acres in the 1960’s, bought from the daughter of the then deceased neighbour Mick, next door.
Although these blocks all adjoined and thus became one holding, they were all on separate Title Deeds. To add to the confusion, these blocks were spread over two Shires at the time. In fact the house was in the then Eltham Shire and the access (Supposedly) from an unmade Road, which ran literally through the Healesville Shire property.
I say supposedly from this road because when the Road was properly surveyed in the 1990’s it was found that the access track and Bridge over the Watson’s Creek, was actually in Dad’s property and not along the road reserve proper. (A fact that Dad had often recalled, to any who were interested!) When the track was first put in, it followed the path of least resistance and not a map line.
Anyway, originally all this Map marked road was, was a track to Grandfather’s house, with a bridge over the Watson’s Creek near the house. Apparently whatever bridge was there originally, was destroyed by the 1927 Bushfires that also destroyed the original house. (This fire is not to be confused with the more infamous fire of the year before in the same area.)
Thus the replacement original bridge that I remember was put in and maintained originally by the Healesville Shire. Sometime in the 1960’s it was repaired and re-decked, again by the Healesville Shire; but later, in the 70’s when a big Gum tree branch fell on it and broke one of the bearers, the Healesville Shire were slow to come to the party and repair it again, claiming they had no records of the bridge and that in fact it was a private bridge and not Healesville Shire’s responsibility. Eventually they compromised and provided a new wooden bearer for the bridge but Dad had to fit it and repair the bridge.
Now this bridge was only ever constructed from Bush timber and so although big was not all that strong and had its liabilities, so Dad came up with a system that worked well for many years. Although he, himself would use it for his own light truck, he would never allow heavy trucks to use it, for fear of it collapsing under the extra weight.
As I said, originally the “Road” only went as far as the house, but during the depression years, our neighbour Mick, as part of the Sustenance Program then running extended it by cutting another track from it along and into the side of the hill roughly along the line of the proposed road site, using a pick and shovel. Now Mick had two blocks backing onto each other stretching from the made Road in front of his house to this unformed Roadway at the back. When he did this Sustenance Program, he only cut the road along the length of our property and his and stopped.
(Apparently he had other plans to rent an adjoining property and remove all the timber for firewood, using this new access track. However it seems the owner of the other block got wind of his scheme and so when she leased it to him she had a clause put in preventing him from cutting down any trees, and only able to collect what was already fallen. But that is another story so we will go back to the original.)
So although this Road, according to the map at least, ran from a major artery at one end to a minor access road at the other, it was never even a rough track for the majority of its length.
Although Mick cut the track to have road access to his back block and the adjoining Timbered block, it was never really used by anyone until around the 60’s and even then more specifically & particularly, after the 62 fires, when it was used a lot by Dad, Mick and the neighbour with the adjoining blocks, and even then mainly to replace burnt out fences and such. It was used a bit more by us when dad not long after brought Mick’s block.(We kids also used it a lot in the 60’s to get to one of the neighbour’s Dams which he had turned into a swimming hole, complete with Diving board and Change Shed etc, but again, that’s another story.) Despite all this it was still not greatly used.
This changed greatly from the 80’s when the neighbour sold his property, also made up of many blocks, to Bob. Now Bob was into Earth Construction and also into subdivisions, so he put in a new heavy duty bridge just up from Dad’s, on the proper Road site and Bulldozed the road along much further, but also like Mick, he only went as far as the end of his property and now 6 homes/families, apart from us, use this Road daily or more.
Bob deliberately stopped at his property’s end, as he did not wish to have this road become a through road with its resulting extra traffic using what is still largely a one lane road.
Now when Bob wanted to subdivide, actually to re-subdivide as the original subdivisions and Title Deeds were already separate, the Shire told him if he put the bridge and road in, they would maintain both, which they have. So that is the basic history of "our" road, as I remember it.
In its long life time this originally long surveyed and named road, has had limited usage, because of various restrictions and lack of need. It is only recently that there has been a real need for this designated road to become an actual usable and useful road.
What about you? Using Road terminology, What type of road are you?
A line on a Map, but unusable in reality? Only partially constructed? A temporary structure?
One limited in usage? Or one that is versatile & permanent?
One that goes all the way? Or one that only takes you halfway?
Well that’s my musings for today. Over to you. Walter
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