Tenterfield (wikipedia) is a town in New South Wales, Australia. It is located in the New England region at the intersection of the New England and Bruxner Highways. Tenterfield is a three-hour drive from Brisbane, 2.5 hours from Byron Bay, two hours from Armidale, New South Wales and 7 hours from Sydney. The town sits in a valley astride the Great Dividing Range. At the 2011 census, Tenterfield had a population of 2,997. Tenterfield’s proximity to many regional centres and its position on the route between Sydney and Brisbane led to its development as a centre for the promotion of the federation of the Australian colonies.

History

Tenterfield’s first inhabitants were the Jukembal people who travelled the area from near Glen Innes to Stanthorpe, Queensland.   In 1841, Sir Stuart Donaldson was running 18,000 sheep on a property that he named Tenterfield Station, after a family home in Scotland. Donaldson was the first premier of NSW and made biannual trips to Tenterfield to inspect his holdings there, which covered 100,000 acres (400 km²) of unfenced land. Tenterfield Post Office opened on 1 January 1849 and the township was gazetted in 1851 with allotments being sold in 1854. In 1858 gold was discovered at Drake (Fairfield) and shortly afterwards at Timbarra and Boonoo Boonoo. During 1859 an AJS Bank opened and an Anglican church was built the following year. In the 1860s the Tenterfield Chronicle was published, the district court was established; the building of a hospital commenced and a public school was opened. In 1870 the population was less than 900, but the town had five hotels, a school of arts and three churches. The existing Tenterfield Post Office was constructed in 1881. During World War II, Tenterfield was earmarked as a key battleground if the Japanese should invade Australia. During 1942 thousands of soldiers were set up in emergency camps, unbeknown to the locals, to cope with such an event. Overgrown tank traps and gun emplacements can still be seen on the Travelling Stock Route near the New England Highway. The highway was until the early 1950s the only all-weather road from Sydney to Brisbane.

Railway

The railway opened to Tenterfield on 28 October 1884 and in 1886 to nearby Wallangarra on the Queensland border, connecting Sydney and Brisbane, with a break-of-gauge at Wallangarra. When the rail link to the Queensland border was completed, Sydney and Brisbane were linked by rail for the first time. The railway was subsequently bypassed by the fully standard gauge North Coast line between Sydney and Brisbane, completed in 1932. The Main North line is now closed north of Armidale and the Tenterfield railway station is now a museum.

Federation Speech

Sir Henry Parkes delivered his Federation Speech here in the Tenterfield School of Arts on 24 October 1889. He was travelling from Brisbane to Sydney, via the new Main North railway. The speech is credited with re-igniting the debate that ultimately led to Federation on 1 January 1901.

Industries

The main industries in the Tenterfield district are beef cattle breeding and superfine wool production through the breeding of Merino sheep. There are ten State Forests in the Tenterfield district covering 7540ha. .

Local geography

The local geography is dominated by prominent granite inselbergs and mountains, the most famous being that of Bald Rock, which sits within the Bald Rock National Park.

Climate

Tenterfield has a subtropical highland climate, with cold, frosty winters and warm, wet summers. It sits at an altitude 850 meters (2788 ft) above sea level, meaning temperatures below freezing in winter are common, and tenterfield averages 47 days where the minimum temperature drops below 0 °C each year. Summers are warm, but rarely hot and most of the rain falls as thunderstorms, which can be severe. Tenterfield’s highest recorded temperature was 38.3 °C (100.9 °F) on 8 January 1994. Its coldest recorded temperature was -10.6 °C (12.9 °F) on the 10 July 2006.   18^th September, Thursday Well here we are in Tenterfield. We didn’t have far to go today but it took us ages to get here.  We had to cross the ranges and the road is steep and narrow and windy and up and down through the passes.  At some points we could only do 35kms p/h.  The scenery again is breathtaking and I’ve stopped taking pictures along the way because the camera doesn’t do it any justice.  The only way that I can describe Tenterfield is that I feel like a kid in a toy shop.  The history and old buildings here are amazing.  This is, after all the birthplace of our Federation.  The caravan park is gorgeous, it looks like it used to be an old hotel (no longer used but very well maintained).  The owners live in a part of it.  The gardens are gorgeous, tulips and all sorts of bulbs flowering for the Spring and the trees are all in full blossom.  It’s cold here as we are quite high up and thankfully I bought an extra blanket a while ago in preparation for this, in fact I’ve just checked the weather and it says that it is going to be 0 degs. Tonight… BRRRRRRRRR, not used to that after being up the top and in Queensland for yonks. The park is well run and spacious. We took a drive to Mt Mackenzie lookout.  The drive takes you through part farmland and part Nature Reserve.  Some of the old farms have derelict broken down homesteads and the feeling I got was that I was being taken back in time, It was weird and hard to explain.  We visited a winery and bought some wine, there is another one here but we will give it a miss (yes, you heard right, ha ha) and concentrate on seeing all the historical things that we can as we are only here for 2 nights.

19^th September, Friday

Well, it certainly was freezing last night. We had goosebumps on our goosebumps and we were too scared even to get out of bed to go to the loo and the loo is in the van, so you can guess how cold it was. I even put a blanket over Hugo to keep him warm.  I got dressed in bed this morning, ha ha. We took a drive around the country side in the morning and it’s so different to what we have been seeing lately.  Lots of strange rock formations all over the place.  The road we had to go through is all private road through various stations, a few cattle along the way but mainly merino sheep is to be seen.  We drove around town to look at all the old buildings which you all know is my pet love.  To be quite honest, we are only here because Ralph wanted to see the Tenterfield Saddlers house.  Those of you who are familiar with the song will know what I mean.  The song was written and sung originally by Peter Allen to honour his father who was a saddler. This song is one of our favourites and we have it recorded by 3 different artists. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xMauNjr7_ZE  This is the link for Tenterfield Saddler by Peter Allen for those of you who don’t know the song or the story.  It’s beautiful, please take time to listen as it’s a true story and a bit of history Xx. The history of this place is so amazing and you will gather that from the gazillion photos that I am posting.  Tonight we will have Thai takeaway from a local Thai restaurant in town.  Apparently the food is really good and authentic and the chefs are Thai.  There are 2 Thai restaurants in town and this being a small town is quite amazing, it must be the favourite cuisine amongst the natives and our gain.  Off tomorrow to Glen Innes.  It’s been a nice sunny day but still jersey weather and another cold night tonight.  Glen Innes is a bit the same and we are going to be there for 2 weeks so I think that I will buy Hugo a bigger blanket tomorrow.