Aboriginal Meanings of some local Place Names

The Geographical Names Board of NSW (http://www.gnb.nsw.gov.au/) database contains in some cases the origins and meaning of various place names. Below is a list of some places located in the Bland, Cowra, Forbes, Weddin and Young Shires followed by the Aboriginal meaning of the word/s:

• Alleena: “we”
• Bangaroo: “native bear”
• Barmedman: “long water”
• Bendick Murrell: “plain”
• Bimbi and Bimbil: from bimbibimbi “place of many birds”
• Binda: “deep water”
• Bumbaldry: “noise of plunging into water”
• Burrangong: “bad water” and also “hunting grounds” or “bad or bitter taste”
• Cowra: “rocks”
• Derriwong: “grey”
• Eurabba: “boggy creek”
• Euroka: “the sun”
• Morangarell: “water fowl’s nest”
• Morongla: “a crayfish”
• Ootha: “ear”
• Pullabooka: “head”
• Thuddungra: “water rushes down”
• Tirranna: “running water”
• Tubbul: “bone”
• Ungarie: “thigh”
• Warrangong: “berry”
• Warroo: “red hornets”
• Weddin: “wait” (not verified) and also from Widdin for “to stop or remain”. Mountains were used by young Aborigines awaiting initiation
• Weethalle: “drink”
• Wirrinya: “sleep”
• Womboyne: “wombat hole”

Old Maps of the Parish of Maudry

During my research of the previous post I managed to find and download (from the Land and Property Information Department Historical Lands Records viewer page: http://www.lpi.nsw.gov.au/mapping_and_imagery/parish_maps) copies of various old maps of the Parish of Maudry. I have a particular interest in these given that our own property is in this Parish. Each of the maps I found is below preceded by the year the LPI Department has allocated to them or some other descriptor.

Parish of Maudry 1890

Parish of Maudry - 1903

Parish of Maudry - 1917

Parish of Maudry - 1923

Parish of Maudry - 1934

Parish of Maudry - Land Titles Office Charting Map

Parish of Maudry - Regional Charting Map

Parish of Maudry - Status Branch Charting Map

There is a massive amount of information on these maps. At some point I hope to return to them and do some analysis, but don't hold your breath!

Pinnacle Run and Maudry (Mortray?) Run

Local historian Lloyd Mitton wrote an article titled Pinnacle Station - A Short History which was published on pages 305 and 306 in the book "People of the Weddin Shire" published in 2001 by the Weddin Shire Council (edited by Gaynor England and Bruce Robinson). Here are some extracts from what Lloyd wrote.

"In 1839 the "Pinnacle Run" (10,720 ha) was taken up by James Graham and Thomas Croker. Subsequent recorded owners included:

• 1848 Thomas Hull
• 1852 William Atkins and William Jamison
• 1854 Roger Feehilly
• April 1877 property was finally forfeited for non-payment of rates

During the 1870's the adjoining property "Mortray Station" belonged to Frederick Trollope (son of author Anthony Trollope) and then JL Waugh and Little. In 1877 the two properties came under the one ownership making a total area of 23,040 ha. The holding was all from then on known as Pinnacle Run. In 1878 the owners advertised the whole property for sale and the new owner was New Zealand Land and Finance Company. Ernest Henry Crawford was appointed manager and immediately set about fencing, ring-barking and clearing the property. By December 1882 a new homestead had been erected. This to this day is the oldest continually occupied dwelling in the Grenfell district."

Earlier today I contacted the Land and Property Information Department to see if I could source early maps of the district. As luck would have it all of the old Parish, Pastoral and various other maps are now accessible via the internet. Here is a link to the Parish and Historical Maps page: http://www.lpi.nsw.gov.au/mapping_and_imagery/parish_maps. And from this page here is a link to  Historical Land Records Viewer page: http://www.lpi.nsw.gov.au/mapping_and_imagery/parish_maps

I was successful in locating an outline sketch of the Pinnacle Run and (as it turns out) the Maudry (Mortray?) Run. What's a bit confusing is that there is no mention of "Mortray" - so my assumption is that due to phonetics the two may have been interchangeable. There is, however, a Parish of Maudry, but it covers a smaller area than what appears to be the original Maudry Run. Below is a copy of the sketch of Pinnacle Run and Maudry Run:

From the above map that it looks like:

• The exterior outline was the original combined holding
• 3 sections were planned to be transferred (or were at least being contested by) to adjacent holdings - Sandy Creek, Ooma and Boyd
• Maudry Run was in fact to the south of the original Pinnacle Run (local widely held belief was that it was to the east)

The land area was as follows:

• Pinnacle Run 25,400 acres or 10,279 hectares
• Maudry Run 29,900 acres or 12,100 hectares
• Total area was 55,300 acres or 22,379 hectares

It is important to remember that when most of the early 'Runs' were taken up no surveys had been conducted. Thus boundaries and total land areas were very approximate.

I was also able to locate a much more detailed map of the combined Pinnacle Run. It is in two sections below:

Top Section of Pinnacle Run

Based on my rough calculations and viewing of various Parish maps I have formed the view that the northern tip of the original Pinnacle Run was located on the Pinnacle Garema Road about 10 km south of the present day village of Garema.

Bottom Section of Pinnacle Run

Here is the map of the bottom section of the Pinnacle Run:

Again based on what I can figure out (but I'm hesitant to be quoted):

• The eastern boundary particularly of the Maudry Run section runs along present day Ooma Creek
• The southern boundary runs along the straight section (adjoining Henry Lawson Way) and partly further west of the present day Pinnacle Road
• The above means that the southeast corner of the combined Pinnacle Run was located around the intersection of Pinnacle Road and the Henry Lawson Way. Locals refer to this spot in general terms as Nags Head Bridge. The Nags Head Hotel was in this area at one point.
• The western edge of the original Maudry Run is just to the south of the Wheoga Range
• The east-west junction between Pinnacle and Maudry Runs is a bit to the south of where the present day 'Gap Road' to Wirrinya runs.

What the above if accurate means, in the context of the formally approved locality of Pinnacle, is that most of the area to the west of the Wheoga Range that is currently / now within the locality of Pinnacle was never part of the original or combined Pinnacle Run.

Pinnacle's Aboriginal Land Council region

Here's a link to the NSW Aboriginal Land Council's website: http://www.alc.org.au

The following page from the above website has a link behind it which shows all of the Local Aboriginal Land Council Regions in NSW: http://www.alc.org.au/land-councils/lalc-regions--boundaries.aspx

From the map in the above link I've taken a screen print and created a JPG file with the image covering the Pinnacle locality and showing the LOLC region we are in as well as those adjacent.

The main points from the above in terms of the locality of Pinnacle are:

• It falls within the broader Wiradjuri Linguistic Group region
• It falls totally within the Cowra Local Aboriginal Land Council Region
• It is very close to the West Wyalong (to the west), Condobolin (just west of north) and Peak Hill (north) Local Aboriginal Land Council Regions

For those not aware the Pinnacle area is not far to the north of the Weddin Mountains. These were of great significance to the Wiradjuri people being near the geographic centre of Wiradjuri Country and known as a place to stay - in the context of initiation of young men.

Outline of the Locality of Pinnacle

The map number of the locality of Pinnacle as recorded by the Geographical Names Board of NSW (http://www.gnb.nsw.gov.au/) is GNB3699. They have very kindly prepared and supplied me with an outline of both the Pinnacle and Glenelg localities. The original document is in hard copy. I've taken a photograph of the document and created and included below a JPG file of the overall map (sorry that it's not very legible - you will be able to enlarge the image by clicking on it).

Here's a screen print of the PDF version of the file.

Very broadly speaking the locality of Pinnacle is located between the towns of Grenfell (30 km to the south east), Forbes (50 km slightly east of north) and West Wyalong (80 km slightly south of west).

The GNB approved localities to adjacent to Pinnacle are:

• Wirrinya to the north-west
• Garema to the north
• Ooma to the north-east
• Glenelg to the east
• Grenfell to the south-east
• Piney Range to the south, and
• Pullabooka to the west

From the above maps I've produced a more expanded view of the Pinnacle locality. The JPG version is  below.

The fine lines on the map represent different landholdings. Here's a screen print of the PDF version.

If you can image a rectangle bordering the outline of the Pinnacle locality it would be approximately 18 km long (width of the locality) and 9.8 km wide (depth of the locality).

Roads leading into the locality of Pinnacle are:

• Wirrinya Pinnacle Road from the north west (becomes Gap Road after you cross Ballendene Road)
• Ironbarks Road, Ballendene (previously Sandy Creek) Road, Simpsons Road, (Garema) Pinnacle Road, and Glenelg Road from the north
• Mortray Road from the north east (run across to Henry Lawson Way)
• Goodes Lane from the east (runs across to the Henry Lawson Way)
• Pinnacle Road (runs across from the Henry Lawson Way), Piney Range Hall (runs off Mid Western Highway and connects with Pinnacle Road), and Hancock Flinns Road (connects with Pullabooka Road which in turn runs down to the Mid Western Highway) from the south

Welcome to Pinnacle, New South Wales Blogsite

The "Pinnacle, New South Wales" blog-site has been created enabling me to record for my own future reference and to share various learnings in connection with the locality of Pinnacle in New South Wales, Australia.
A major catalyst to me creating this site was the confusion in trying to understand why the mail that was delivered to our place had different location names depending on who the sender was. We were of the view that the correct last line of our postal address should be 'Grenfell NSW 2810' given that Grenfell is the closest town to us, even though it is a distance of about 25 km. The National Australia Bank and several other large companies were, however, auto defaulting our address as either "Glenelg NSW 2810", "Grenfell NSW 2810" or "Pinnacle NSW 2810".
After some exhausting research we finally were made aware that in the mid 1990s the Geographical Names Board of New South Wales (http://www.gnb.nsw.gov.au/) had in conjunction with various Local Government Areas and Australia Post developed and had formally gazetted / approved 'localities' throughout the State of NSW. The locality names approved by the Geographical Names Board in New South Wales are all unique and it turns out that the correct / actual /approved locality for us is "Pinnacle".
Part of the above-mentioned project scope also included the formal numbering of property access points (many were front gate locations) and roadways. The number allocated to the access point was the actual distance in units of 10 metres from that access point to the intersection of that particular road with another. The allocated number was either an odd or even number depending on what side of the road it was on as one drove away from the intersection. Odd numbers are applied to access points on the left hand side and even numbers to access points on the right.
The road number for the main access point to our own farm is 761. This means we are located 7610 metres (761 X 10) from the intersection of Goodes Lane and Henry Lawson Way and are on the left hand side of Goodes Lane when travelling from Henry Lawson Way.
The adoption of this road access point numbering system is fabulous as it allows for:

• Increased likelihood of mail arriving. Australia Post is able to sort mail assisting those who deliver the mail off the back of the numbering system
• Emergency services such as Ambulance, Police and the Rural Fire Services to more easily find our location in the event of an emergency.

On the latter, in the event of an emergency we now know that when we call 000 we would need to make it clear that we are at 761 Goodes Lane, Pinnacle, New South Wales. All of the emergency service providers have databases enabling them to accurately locate us.

Since learning all of the above last week I've been in touch with staff at Land and Property Information who have kindly sent me through a map of the locality of Pinnacle. It is clear from this that our farm is in the locality of Pinnacle but adjoins the locality of Glenelg. This is turn explains why some of the mail we get was addressed to Glenelg.

I have also been able to confirm that the correct postcode for us is 2810. This is the same postcode as for Grenfell. Australia Post is able to assign the same postcodes to multiple localities and suburbs.

Given that I grew up in this area I happen to know that the area locally referred to as 'Pinnacle' is larger than the formally approved locality of Pinnacle NSW 2810. No matter. Whilst I intend to focus my future research of the formal locality of Pinnacle I know that I will stray from time to time and bring in factors that are of relevance to those of us who live in and have an interest in this region.

So ... welcome to my latest blog-site. I hope readers find what I write interesting, and of course I will receive input and suggestions with enthusiasm.