Linda Barraclough. I congratulate you on your herculean effort in compiling of a Gippsland Time Line. I suggest that some or all of the following events should be included - (1) 1862 - McDonald's Track completed. [I stressed the importance of the track in a message on 8 March 1999, in which I referred to comments by T.J. Coverdale (see below). Some people may feel that the track was unimportant since it shortly became disused and overgrown. However, it became very important in the mid-1870s when it was used as a base line for survey by selectors in the densely forested hill country lying in the vicinity of the track between Poowong and Narracan. (2) 1870 - Selections at and near Brandy Creek (Buln Buln) marked the beginning of a land rush, which continued throughout the decade until a huge tract of virgin land in west and south-west Gippsland had been taken up by selectors in west and south-west Gippsland. [Hugh Copeland, in "The Path of Progress" (Warragul, 1934, p 8) states: "The fame of Brandy Creek spread; instances of the prolific growth that resulted from sowing grass-seed on the ashes after burning the timber led people to believe the soil was remarkably rich."] (3) 1871 - Dodd's Track (also known as Stockyard Creek Track and later as Turton's Track - a bridle track extrending from Moe to Foster) was cut by Robinson, Dodds, Fisher and Farley. This track served as an overland route to the goldfield at Foster. The track was later resurveyed by Liddiard and sections of it are still in use as minor roads. (4) 1872 - Discovery of gold at Turton's Creek (north of Foster).. - Addendum - Extract from a chapter by T.J. Coverdale in "The Land of the Lyre Bird" (Shire of Korumburra, 1920), pp 77,78: "But civilisation's first effectual mark was laid on the wilderness when G. T. McDonald, in 1862, completed the track that bears his name. This was the biggest piece of road surveying ever done in South Gippsland. Although he did not plot it as the two-chain road it is now, he ran the course throughout and cut a track along it. It ran easterly and north-easterly from Tobinyallock [Lang Lang] to Morwell [Bridge], a distance of about seventy miles, and for the most of the way through the heart of the big scrub country. It was a monument to the skill and perseverance of the man who, after more than two years of difficult and tedious exploring, completed it. His supplies had to be packed from Cranbourne, distant during part of the work over sixty miles. The road was intended for a better stock route from Sale to Melbourne, but was abandoned, as there was no permanent water on it, although it ran through an exceptionally wet country. The reason of this is that for the most of the way it runs along the top of a dividing range which falls away sharply in places, especially to the southward. Although he had to grope about in the dark, so to speak, through the scrub, it is surprising how little alteration was needed in the route surveyed by him when the clearings let daylight in upon his work. Clearing his seven foot "track" along the line, he unconsciously wrote his name in history; and then the scene of his labours was left to the silence of the bush again for the next twelve or thirteen years. When the first pioneers came in, the track was entirely overgrown and very difficult to trace, so much so. that some of the blocks were surveyed right across it - the land surveyors not noticing it at the time. After being run again, it became the base line for the survey of many thousands of acres, and as they came in, the settlers kept opening up the old seven-foot track further and further east [sic – and/or west]. And this seven-foot track was the only road in the district for some three or four years, and had to carry the traffic of many square miles of country. Its condition in the Winter may be left to the imagination." Walter Savige