Antinuclear

In the 1840s Ben Boyd, as he was developing a settlement on Eden’s Twofold Bay, wanted to see some of his vast land holdings on the Monaro.

He needed to find a way up from the coast to the high country and it was Aboriginal people who showed him how to get there along the Bundian Way.

The 265km track had for generations connected Bilgalera (which non-Aboriginal people now called Fisheries Beach) with Targangal (now called Mt Kosciuszko).

Ben Boyd, with a young artist, Oswald Brierly, were guided to the high country by a young Aboriginal man, Budginbro, on horseback from the coast, along river flats and over some of the wildest and most rugged and beautiful parts of Australia.

For a large part of the journey they travelled along the Bundian Way and deviated along connected pathways.

The pathway has been surveyed and is now being rehabilitated, section by section, to be opened again for walkers, both Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal, as a shared history experience celebrating that first joint expedition.

It’s a shared history which encapsulates the heritage of the early settlers and the heritage of our people who were here for many generations before the settlers came,” said Aboriginal elder Ossie Cruse as we spoke at the community’s Keeping Place………

Aboriginal work teams are currently clearing the pathway around Twofold Bay, a stunning walk around the undeveloped shoreline, little changed from Boyd’s time.

Above a beautiful beach on Eden’s Twofold Bay and looking across to the tree lined southern and eastern shores the Bundian Way project manager Noel Whittem says that the walk will emerge as a major tourist attraction especially for the visitors arriving on the cruise ships that are increasingly visiting the picturesque harbour, and where a new wharf is to be built.

The full 265km track he says will also be an attraction for bushwalkers and for those walkers who travel the world to walk ancient cultural heritage roads and tracks.

The Bundian Way is one that would predate most and tells a poignant story of the two cultures.

“We have people who want to walk the Bundian Way already.”

See the related audio for a fascinating insight into the Bundian Way project as we journey from Twofold Bay to the Keeping Place with Noel Whittem, Franz Peters, and Ossie Cruse. http://www.abc.net.au/local/stories/2014/06/02/4017106.htm