Kerrie Blyth www.megroloz.com Robert Ewart 1859-1929

Explorers of Western by CJ Binks

Robert Ewart

Tyndall Range - Eldon Bluff. February - May 1900 Report: H of A Papers 1900, No. 44. Map: 17 tracks, Lands Dept. Party: Robert Ewart, Marcus Hardwicke, William Johnstone.

This track began at , where there were prospecting sections, not far from the pack track to Red Hills. It followed the Anthony downstream for a short distance before turning east and crossing another large tributary of the Murchison River a short distance above its junction with the Murchison. Ewart took this tributary to be the Murchison itself, and the main stream to be the Canning. The tributary was spanned by a log and handrail 10m above the water. The track was cut up the long spur which Gould had followed forty years earlier, and terminated at Lake Dorothy (Ewart thought this was Lake Augusta), which nestles into the northern side of Eldon Bluff. The work was hampered by rain and snow, and during the last seven weeks Ewart had only one man to help him.

Eldon Bluff - . January - April 1901 Report: H of A Papers 1901 No. 47. Map: 31 Tracks, Lands Dept. Party: Robert Ewart, Alan Pybus, James New, Leslie Ims. (Charles Roberts later replaced Ims).

A continuation of the earlier track, Ewart took this across the saddle between High Dome and Pyramid Hill. Starting from Lake St Clair, he followed the route of Burgess, Gould, Moore and Counsel past Lake Petrarch onto Coal Hill and along the crest of the range west of Gould's Sugarloaf to a point between Pyramid Hill and Rocky Hill, where it swung north to High Dome. The track may still be traced through the scrub in the saddle between Gould's Sugarloaf and Pyramid Hill, and down the spur into the head of the Murchison River, and old stakes can be seen across the high ground below High Dome, though most of the large ones date from a later period when the track was restaked.

On completion of the Lake St Clair track, Ewart shortened the track of the previous year by making a deviation off the main spur, across the watershed between the North Eldon and the large Murchison tributary, and over the to Lake Rolleston, where it joined the pack track.

Pelion Plains — Bridge January - May 1902 Report: Corr. Ewart - Counsel LSD File 8100G - 208 AOT. Map: 33 Tracks, Lands Dept. Party: Robert Ewart, Alan Pybus, William Buddon, Henry Edwards. (James O'Meara later replaced Buddon).

explorers-rewart.doc 17 March 2008 Kerrie Blyth www.megroloz.com Robert Ewart 1859-1929

This was one of the link tracks connecting two main access routes: E. G. Innes's track from Liena to Rosebery and Ewart's track from Lake Rolleston to Lake St Clair. Ewart commenced work on the Innes track close to the foot of the descent from Pelion Plains to Frog Flat, about 3 km from the . (Innes's track crossed the Forth 30 miles from Liena; Ewart's track left it 28 miles 28 chains from Liena). The track reached its highest point on the saddle above Frog Flat, between Mts Thetis and Achilles, before beginning a graded descent into the valley of the Wallace River, around the eastern and southern slopes of Perrin's Bluff. In the month from mid-January there were five snow-falls, and only twelve fine days. During this period Ewart went ahead and roughly marked the route of the track as far as Eldon Bluff, but in such poor weather that for much of the way he could see for less than a hundred metres.

The track crossed the Murchison ('Canning') a kilometre above its junction with the Wallace, then climbed steadily S.W. to Dome Hill, where it turned south to join Ewart's earlier track on the high ground just west of Lake Ewart ('Augusta') at the end of March. Ewart and his men had a short break in before resuming work on the second stage. While two of the men worked up the banks of the King and South Eldon from the King River Bridge on the Linda Track, Ewart took one man ahead and completed the high level section from Lake Ewart, between Eldon Bluff and Castle Mountain, down a spur to the South Eldon. The track kept to the south bank of the river all the way down to The Long Marsh.

In 1909 a track was cut by Ewart from the Gordon near the mouth of the Smith River, in an attempt to connect with R. A. C. Thirkell's re-cut and extension of J. L. A. Moore's track of 1900 from the Linda Track to the lower Jane River. The season was a very wet one and the scrub in this area — the Smith River Valley — was extremely bad. The party ran out of supplies and the track was discontinued. (Surveyor-General's Report 1908-9; Map 42 Tracks, Lands Dept.)

explorers-rewart.doc 17 March 2008