#11 On the Road to Wollombi Traditional Cache

On the Road to Wollombi series

THE WOLLOMBI ROAD NEEDLESS FEAR. #11

Needless Fear
Even in the dubious caste of bushrangerdom there were pariahs. Such an outcast was a man who, when he came to the Hunter side in January of 1864, gave his name as John Chivers. Over on the Lachlan he had been known to a certain selected coterie, of which, a Mr. Benjamin Hall was the acknowledged leader, by an altogether different title. In the 'eighteen sixties there were men in Maitland, the flotsam and jetsam of the old penal regime, who still obtained their livelihood by those devious arts that were responsible for their first enforced presence in Australia. Thus it was that the worthies with whom Chivers had been tempted to play at cards on several successive evenings felt the elation of easy victory as they deftly and dishonestly handled the greasy paste-board oblongs. Within a week Chivers found himself so destitute of money he was faced with the disagreeable alternative of working for a living or practising the profession of bushranger about the Maitland highways. He was anxiously debating his melancholy case one morning as he sauntered towards the patch of scrub where his horse was secreted, when, to his conternation, he observed amounted constable riding directly to the hiding place. Thus was his mind made up for him. He turned and fled. Keeping to the cover of the timber he worked his way around the township until he reached the Wollombi road and then plodded doggedly along its rough and broken surface. He was not to learn until three days later that the trooper had not been looking for his horse; had not in fact even suspected its presence in the bush. It was his own anxious inquiry, as to its welfare when in the Wollombi police cells that led to its discovery, famished and well nigh dead with thirst. Tramping steadily along the road Chivers, swagless, foodless and foot sore, was in no amiable frame of mind when he fell in with John Tuck, a genial and light-hearted pedlar, making his merry way to the Hawkesbury.

This Cache belongs to a series heading around Maitland 

these are designed to give beginners some caches to find that are easy

hence the whole series is less than 1.5 both in  difficulty and terrain  

This Roads at Times can be busy so be careful especially with children