Our first cache. An easy one. Picturesque and hopefully educational. Sandwiched between turf farms, market gardens, small rural residential, and the most private part of the Nepean. Welcome to our neighbourhood.
This is a quiet rural area. Please respect the residences privacy.
Contrary to popular belief, the adjoining turf farms use very little herbicide, pesticide, and chemical fertilisers. Certainly in comparison to the adjoining market gardens that supply the big supermarkets.
While the road terminates at the river, access is prevented by thick lantana and difficult terrain.
Note the interesting first people history and contact with John Hunter. Also note Andrew Thompson is in the news again due to the plans to build a bridge over Thompson's square in Windsor.
The geomorphology of the area is interesting. Dominated by fertile alluvial flats with billabongs / ox bow lakes on the eastern side of the flood plain. The rise where Castlereagh road is situated is beautiful clean sand deposit, mostly wind blown during the drying period of the late quaternary period. A few wind blown clay (parna) lenses flow through the sand deposits resulting in numerous springs on the slopes down to the flood plain.
The cache is small. It contains(ed) our first two trackables. Travel bugs; Dave the Mignon and Mike Ball the snowball.
Some interesting history below:
Agnes Banks History
One of the first sightings of a platypus by Europeans was in 1797 when Governor John Hunter observed a Dharug man spear a platypus in Yarramundi Lagoon. This lagoon is named after Aboriginal leader, Yellow-Mundee who used the Grose Valley and Grose Wold region as his tribal lands. He was the elder of the Richmond or Boorooberongal clan and was one of the first Dharug to have contact with the settlers on the Hawkesbury River. Colbee (or Colebee), Yellow-Mundee's son, accompanied William Cox when he built the road over the Blue Mountains and in appreciation was given a land grant by Governor Macquarie. Colbee's sister Maria,who married First Fleet convict Robert Lock, lived on this grant at Blacktown. Yarramundi is the name given to the Hawkesbury suburb on the western side of the Hawkesbury-Nepean River.
Early land grants
The first European land grants in the Penrith area were issued near Agnes Banks in 1803. Land was granted along the alluvial river flats. Charles Palmer received the first grant and he and his family experienced frontier life to the fullest extent when they were not only robbed and beaten by strangers, but also by their convict servants. The most influential grantee was Andrew Thompson, who in 1804 received 78 acres (31.5 hectares) between the Nepean River and Yarramundi (Yello-mundee) Lagoon. He named it Agnes Bank, after his mother . Thompson had arrived as a convict in 1792 and was well known in the Windsor area. In his usual style, he immediately developed the land and purchased adjoining land granted to discharged soldiers William Baxter and Joseph Bayliss. Floods quickly sorted out who were ready to tough it out and farm the rich, but deadly, Nepean River flats.
Agnes Bank was sold in 1815 to John Campbell, Governor Macquarie's secretary and administrator. At least two farmhouses were built there in the 1820s. One remaining homestead, known now as Osborne, is located close to the river. Agnes Bank was purchased by Robert and Charlotte (nee Eather) Williams in 1838. Their family retained ownership well into the twentieth century. In 1862, George Williams – the owner of the homestead block – rented it to William Freeman, his brother-in-law. The farm was constantly being flooded, and in 1867 Freeman decided not to move out of the house when it flooded. This flood was the biggest in recorded history, and Freeman was rescued from the top of his house.
Continuity with the past
The number of families who lived at Agnes Banks has changed little since its settlement in the early 1800s. Many descendants of these families still live on or near the land of their forebears. Local family names were Clemson, Devlin, Farlow, Freeman, Gavin, Pearce, Timmins and Williams.
In 1982 National Parks and Wildlife Service, in consultation with the Penrith City Council, established a nature reserve near Rickards Road to protect the unusual sand deposits in the district. It contains most of the remaining unaltered sand deposits, providing a benchmark for scientific and educational use, especially on ecological change and research into threatened species.