HIDDEN HINTERLAND DELIGHTS

Alexanders Hut came as a complete surprise.

We had been touring the hills and ranges of southern NSW and had been wandering through the rather disjointed South East Forests National Park where, by more sheer luck than any sort of planning, we stumbled on the old building set in amongst some naturally cleared country on the highest ridges of this part of Great Dividing Range.

A hut had first been built here on these high plains, inland from Tathra on the south coast of NSW, in the 1890s by cattlemen bringing their stock up during the summer for the rich verdant grazing. In 1922 Alexander Robinson took over the grazing lease and continued the tradition of summer grazing and built the slab hut from local timber, hessian and corrugated iron.

Bringing cattle to these leases though and living here was no walk in the park and the easy way we get here today and stay has little to do with the tough life these pioneers had to endure not so long ago. In the tough times, especially during the depression and WW2, rabbits helped sustain the family with, not only as food but also as cash flow brought on by selling the skins, used in the manufacture of the famous