Old Great North Road, Dharug National Park, Maintenance Plan

This plan is about the 16 km stretch of the Old Great North Road between the spectacular ascent of Devine’s Hill from the Hawkesbury River at Wiseman’s Ferry through to 10 Mile Hollow. The plan also covers the original 5 km ascent from the Hawkesbury, known as Finch’s Line, which was abandoned in 1829.

Also covered in this document are Simpson’s Track, which joins the Old Great North Road at 10 Mile Hollow, and the Shepherd’s Gully and Sternbeck’s Gully roads, which join the Old Great North Road at the top of Devine’s Hill and once provided routes through to the Macdonald Valley. The latter two roads are within Yengo National Park while the remainder fall within Dharug National Park.

A revised Conservation Management Plan for these roads was prepared in 2003–04 by Griffin NRM Pty Ltd. The plan (Ireland et al., 2005) has a strategic management approach and views the Old Great North Road as a cultural landscape rather than a series of sites. The brief for the preparation of the Conservation Management Plan envisaged that a detailed Maintenance Plan would provide comprehensive guidelines for the future maintenance of the Old Great North Road.

This document was commissioned in late 2003 by the National Parks and Wildlife Service. Circumstances prevented its completion in 2004 and the project was re-activated in 2006.

The aim of the project has been to provide:

• comprehensive maintenance guidelines for the Old Great North Road
• detailed maintenance schedules on a precinct-by-precinct basis
• training for NPWS staff
• best practice management of a cultural heritage place.