Moonbi Range

Moonbi
Range
View of the Moonbi Range, from Flagstaff Mountain.
Country	Australia
State	New South Wales
Region	Northern Tablelands, New South Wales
Range	New England Range

The Moonbi Range is a chain of hills which forms a part of the Northern Tablelands, New South Wales, Australia.

The range is located roughly 20 kilometres north east of the city of Tamworth situated at the bottom of the Wentworth Mounds, which is part of the Moonbi Range. These mounds form a spur of the Great Dividing Range where the Northwest Slopes meet to the Northern Tablelands. The Moonbi Range rises from 500 metres to about 1,300 m AHD and it generally forms the divide between the drainage basins of the Cockburn River to the south, and the Macdonald River to the north, which are both themselves tributaries of the Namoi River. The higher parts of the area often receive a snowfall in the winter, and the most well known mountain is called Black Jack (1,300 m).

History

To the road traveller on the New England Highway, the Moonbi Range is notable as it is a major uphill climb on the highway as the motorist ascends from Moonbi at the foot of the 1st Moonbi Hill to the Northern Tablelands and the village of Bendemeer.

In 1832 Edward Gostwyck Cory blazed a track over the range that the existing highway has generally followed. A granite boulder named Cory’s Pillar (sometimes Cory’s Pillow or Cory’s Nightcap) commemorates where Cory is believed to have rested during his travels.

When Banjo Paterson was born in 1864, the Great Northern Road was still in poor condition making travel to the New England district for wagon teams very difficult. In his poem “Over the Range”, Andrew “Banjo” Paterson wrote of the obstacle that the Moonbi Range created for travelers to the Northern Tablelands.

New England Highway on the 1st Moonbi Hill

‘The Pinch’ was a pass over the First Moonbi Hill near Cory’s Pillar which involved a steep climb of about 200 metres. Here teamsters used to hitch several teams together to haul their wagons up this section. Descending the range loaded, they often dragged felled trees behind them to slow their descent down these steep slopes.

Capt. B. H. Martindale (Commissioner for Internal Communication) in his fourth report in 1860 was able to refer to “2 miles of road at the Moonbi’s Pass which has been greatly improved”. By 1865, the road section between Tamworth and Bendemeer had been cleared and fenced.^[1]

A second route was found through the Moonbi Ranges in the early 1870s which eliminated the steep section of “The (Blue) Pinch”.

In 1937 a new bitumen sealed route to eliminate the earlier “S-Bend” deviation and a steep section was built from Moonbi over the range. Reconstruction on the First Moonbi Hill which began in 1975 now continues on a 5 km section, which has double traffic lanes in each direction. Emergency stopping beds have been built running off the highway of both of the hills in case of vehicle brake failure.

The Moonbi Park lookout situated in a high area just off the New England Highway roughly 25 km north of Tamworth, New South Wales, offers a spectacular view of the areas south of the mountain from a huge granite boulder.

In August 1998 The New England Highway was closed for 8 hours after two truck-sized boulders fell onto the northbound highway, blocking it.^[2]

Panoramic view looking south from a higher part of the range.

See also

New South Wales portal

• List of mountains in Australia

References

1. ^ New Road Through Rugged Moonbi Ranges Retrieved on 27 March 2009
2. ^ EMA Disasters Database

Coordinates: 31°12′S 151°25′E / 31.2°S 151.417°E / -31.2; 151.417