his 1815 Tour along the road also noted: With this description of Mount York and Cox's Pass, Governor Macquarie used the kind of extravagant rhetoric which subsequently found favour with others who wrote about the history of the Western Road, wanting to invest it with symbolic meaning. Cox's Road was quickly modified and then superseded by alternative road descents from the Mount York ridge, initially Lawson's Long Alley in 1823/24, and then Lockyer's Road in 1829. The entire ridge was bypassed with the transfer of convicts to work on Mitchell's Pass and the Great Western Road during the 1830s. The spectacular views over the Hartley Valley from the famous vantage point of Mount York and the presence of historic relics of the Cox's Road (also described as the old Bathurst Road) contributed to its selection as the major site for commemoration during the 1913 Centenary Celebrations for the "First Crossing" of the Blue Mountains. The speeches and publications prepared at that time used elaborate rhetoric about explorers, visionary Governors, road-builders and pioneers. The Mount York reserve was again the setting for the major civic event held in May 2013 as part of Bicentennial Commemorations of the Crossings of the Blue Mountains. The Pass at Mount York remains one of the most intact and most significant surviving sections of the 1814-1815 Cox's Road, and it is accessible as a walking track from the public reserve at the end of Mount York Road. Description William Cox had been instructed by Governor Macquarie only to open a rough cart road, so that the new lands found in the western plains would be symbolically open. The road from Emu Ford to Bathurst, a distance of was completed in only six months. Macquarie's instructions specified that the road should be at least wide in order that two carts would be able to pass each other, and that the timber should be cleared on each side so that the road corridor was wide. Stumps were to be grubbed out and any holes should be filled in. The surviving physical evidence shows relatively few locations where the extant road conforms with the dimensions specified in the instructions. A signposted walking track commences from the public reserve at the end of Mount York Road. Near the summit, intermittent low cuttings are evident, with much later steps cut or built into the line of the actual road. (loc: -33.552892,150.220082).