GOOD OL’ DAYS

I enjoyed your story about Kangaroo Valley ( A time to heal, AG 156) because it brought back memories of a visit there with my grandfather some 80 years ago. His father, Daniel, arrived there as a free settler, with his brother and parents in 1830.

I remember there was a slab hut near a creek, long gone now, I suppose, but the legend goes that the family had the “first wheeled vehicle” in the valley. Because there were no roads into the valley and it was such rough country, it had to have been made there.

The wheels were just thick slices sawn from a fair-sized hardwood log, perhaps with an iron axle, which could have been forged right there. I guess those were “the good old days”. JEFFREY LEWRY, BOWNA, NSW