Cox's Road : The Conquest of the Blue Mountains

This book is history experienced at close-hand. It recounts the facts and circumstances that led the Scots Governor Lachlan Macquarie to commission the building of a road across the Great Dividing Range.

How an Englishman, William Cox and just thirty convicts from the jails of England and Ireland carved out of this rugged wilderness, such a road, 101 and a half miles long, in just six months.

Just how Cox built this road, how it saved the early Colony from possible extinction and how the convicts earned their freedom as a reward is at the core of the story.

Both the book and the film unlock new facts and ideas.

The use of historical and archive material including personal notes, letters and diaries will also give the readers and viewers a subtle understanding of the Macquarie governorship; the difficulties he faced in developing a penal colony where people behaved as though it was a free colony.