The Macquarie Connection...
The stunning creek and plain surrounding Collector Creek Bridge is steeped in history. Here is the story of how it came to be known as "the Macquarie Precinct"
On 27 October 1820, Governor Macquarie camped adjacent to the Collector Creek Bridge site and named Lake George from there. This is recorded in Lachlan Macquarie, Governor of New South Wales, Journal of his Tours in New South Wales and Van Diemen's Land 1810-1822, Published by Library of Australian History in Association with the Library Council of New South Wales, Sydney 1979. This states (in relation to Lake George)
"We proceeded on from where we first made it for 4 miles farther along the Eastern Shore of it, and then encamped at 3pm on a very pretty plain, near a fresh water creek, distant about nine miles from the north west extremity of the lake"
You can read the entire Macquarie journal entry here
New South Wales, from the north east
The next day Macquarie and his party rode around the lake and returned to the above camp where he records:
"We sat down to dinner at half past five, and after a dinner we drank a bumper toast to the success of the future settlers of the shores of Lake George, which name I have given to this grand and magnificent sheet of water in honour of His Majesty"
You can read the entire Macquarie journal entry here
There is only one creek of significance nine miles north west of the lake
and that is Collector Creek
The distance from the Collector bridge is approximately 9 miles along the creek to where the lake shore was formerly located. The land adjacent to the bridge is "a very pretty plain" and has no comparison for attractiveness in the area. Further corroboration that this was the site is found in Murray of Yarralumla by Gwendolyn Wilson, Oxford University Press 1968. On page 13 she notes that Macquarie first saw the lake "from the hill of Colegdar" (the aboriginal name for Collector).
The "very pretty plain" - adjacent to Collector Creek - that Macquarie refers to, where he camped and named Lake George from is known locally as "Macquarie Flat" or "Macquarie Plain"
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