Bargo - NSW

Bargo is accessible via the Hume Highway that links Sydney, Canberra and Melbourne. It was previously known as West Bargo and Cobargo.Bargo is noted as being where the first recorded sightings of the lyrebird, koala and wombat took place by European settlers. Bargo is also near the site of an infamous massacre in 1816, when settlers forced local Aborigines to walk off a big cliff and shot them if they refused.Early explorers and convicts found getting through the Bargo area a difficult experience due to the thick scrub, explorers dubbing the tricky bush the "Bargo Brush". In early colonial times, Bargo Brush became notorious among travellers for harbouring convicts who had escaped from captivity and become bushrangers.A verse of the Australian folk song Stringybark and Greenhide (circa 1865) celebrates the bad reputation among bullock drivers of the Bargo roads: "If you travel on the road, and chance to stick in Bargo, To avoid a bad capsize, you must unload your cargo; For to pull a dray about, I do not see the force on, Take a bit of greenhide, and hook another horse on."