User:Geez-oz/sandbox

History in Australia
Australia's first mail coach was established in 1828 and was crucial in connecting the remote settlements being established to the larger centres. The Sydney to Melbourne overland packhorse mail service was commenced in 1837. From 1855 the Sydney to Melbourne overland mail coach was supplanted by coastal steamer ship and rail. The rail network became the distributor of mail to larger regional centres there the mail coach met the trains and carried the mail to more remote towns and villages. .

In 1863 contracts were awarded to the coaching company Cobb & Co to transport Royal mail services within New South Wales and Victoria. These contracts and later others in Queensland continued until 1924 when the last service operated in western Queensland. The lucrative mail contracts helped Cobb & Co grow and become an efficient and vast network of coach services in eastern Australia.

History
In May 1813 explorers Blaxland, Wentworth, and Lawson setout to discover the inland to the west of Sydney, over the Blue Mountains. The group climbed the mountains and on reaching the top of the ridges they continued west to a point later named Mount Blaxland (south of present day Rydal). This was the first access by Europeans to the area now known as the Central Tablelands. Governor Macquarie ordered a second expedition, in November 1813, led by government surveyor George Evans, this second expedition travelled further and reached the site now known as the city of Bathurst.

Western portion (surrounding Bathurst)
Two physical components comprise the Central Tablelands region surrounding Bathurst; the Bathurst Basin and the Tablelands areas. They are drained by the Macquarie, Turon, Fish and Campbells Rivers to the north and Abercrombie and Isabella Rivers to the south. The central basin area of the Bathurst area is mainly granite soils while in the north area sandstone, conglomerates, greywacke, siltstones, limestones and minor volcanos predominate. The south is more complex geology with siltstones, sandstones, greywacke, shales and chert, basalt and granite intrusions and embeded volcanic and limestones. Underlying Bathurst is the dominant feature of Bathurst granite (intruded in the Devonian period) and at Mount Panorama and Mount Stewart basalt occurs.

Northern portion (surrounding Mudgee)
Topography of the region ranges from slightly undulating to rough and very steep country, approximately 30 km to the east of Bathurst is the folded and faulted sedimentary and metamorphosed formations of the Great Dividing Range which runs roughly north-south.

Naming
New South Wales can be divided into four broad landform components:
 * the coastal regions fronting the Tasman Sea in the east of the State
 * the highlands (elevated tablelands) which form part of the Great Dividing Range
 * the western (inland) slopes of the highlands, which form the main agricultural region of the State
 * the arid western plains

The four geographic components are then typically divided into north, central and southern areas based upon their location relative to Sydney.

This two-way subdivision gives rise to the generic pattern of regions:


 * North Coast
 * Central Coast
 * South Coast
 * Northern Tablelands
 * Southern Tablelands
 * North-West Slopes
 * Central Western Slopes
 * South-West Slopes
 * Western Plains