by that proposed by Major Thomas Mitchell, who had become Surveyor General in 1828. Mitchell re-surveyed the line of the road between Mount York and Bathurst, preparing a map showing a new line in 1830. This map showed the route of Cox's Road to Bathurst via the Fish River as the "Present Road by Mt Blaxland". Considering he had found a superior route, Mitchell ordered the transfer of the convict gangs from work near Mount York to the Mount Victoria descent in January 1830. These developments meant that the old Bathurst Road "by Mount Blaxland" was little used, except as access to private properties, which in this area were being occupied from the 1830s. 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 Crown Road is still reserved and shown on the cadastre in this area running from McKanes Falls Road to the Rydal-Hampton Road. Here the line of Cox's Road becomes more difficult to access as the road itself does not always align with the modern tracks or with what is noted as the "Old Bathurst Road". Therefore the actual road itself crosses in and out of private property. The physical evidence of the 1814 road where it is present through this area at the beginning of the "Clarence Hilly Range" is also overlaid with later 1820s work, essentially upgrading, re-building and improvement of the older road for at least a decade (most undertaken to 1827) before it was by-passed by the new lines selected by Lockyer in 1829 and by Mitchell in 1830. Both Mount York and the road by Mount Blaxland were avoided by the new road route. The evidence of road-building in this area includes more than one line, with most of the obvious extant