The Northern Tablelands, also known as the New England Tableland, is a plateau and a region of the Great Dividing Range in northern New South Wales, Australia. It includes the New England Range, the narrow highlands area of the New England region, stretching from the Moonbi Range in the south to the Queensland border in the north. The region corresponds generally to the Bureau of Meteorology forecast area for the Northern Tablelands which in this case includes Inverell although it is significantly lower in elevation.
Geography and climate
These tablelands are the largest highland area in Australia, covering approximately 18,197 square kilometres. There are widespread high points over 1,000 metres including The Brothers (1,508m), Ben Lomond (1,505m), Mount Rumbee (1,503m), Point Lookout (1,564m), Campoompeta (1,510m), Mount Spirabo (1,492m), Mount Mitchell (1,475m), Chandler's Peak (1,471m), Mount Grundy (1,462m), Mount Bajimba (1,448 m) and the highest point at Round Mountain is 1,584 metres above sea level. The now closed railway station at Ben Lomond, was the highest railway station in Australia.
The formation of the Great Dividing Range has resulted in a wide variety of soil types being located on the Northern Tablelands. Here soils are mostly derived from basaltic rocks, granite rocks, trap rock or alluvials along creeks and rivers. The New England Peppermint Grassy Woodland is the main vegetation community in the region.
The eastern escarpment of the Tableland has spectacular gorges, rainforests and waterfalls, protected in more than 25 National Parks, with three of them listed as World Heritage Areas by UNESCO and forming part of the Central Eastern Rainforest Reserves (CERRA). Werrikimbe National Park and Oxley Wild Rivers National Park, one of the largest national parks in NSW are accessible from the Oxley Highway east of Walcha. The Oxley Wild Rivers National Park is also accessible via Waterfall Way east of Armidale and south of Hillgrove. Access to the World Heritage listed New England National Park is also from Waterfall Way.
The coastal flowing Clarence, Macleay and Manning, rivers have their headwaters on eastern escarpment of the Tableland. The inland flowing rivers have their confluence with the Gwydir, Namoi and Macintyre river systems of the Murray-Darling River Basin. The only major water storage dam on the Northern Tablelands is Copeton Dam on the Gwydir River near Inverell.
The high elevation of the tablelands means cool summers (rarely over 32 °C) but winters are cold with occasional snowfalls and many frosty mornings. Winter minimums can go as low as -10 °C around Armidale, Guyra, Woolbrook and Walcha regions during frosty mornings, but this usually results in clear sunny days. The Northern Tablelands is a high rainfall region with averages ranging from 650 mm on the western slopes to over 1,200 mm on the east of the range. About 60% of this rainfall occurs during the summer months.
History
Australian Aboriginals have lived on the tablelands for tens of thousands of years. Prior to colonisation there were several language groups in the region, included the Anaiwan language. The indigenous population of the tablelands has been estimated to be 1,100 to 1,200 at the time of colonisation, but was reduced to perhaps 400 by the 1890s.
Walcha was explored in 1818 by John Oxley who ascended the range near Limbri. In 1832 Hamilton Collins Semphill, a settler from Belltrees on the Hunter River, formed a station in the upper Apsley River valley and named it Wolka (Walcha) from the local Aboriginal language. Edward Gostwych Cory, who was displaced from his runs by the Australian Agricultural Company, came over the Moonbi Range and settled at Gostwyck, near Uralla. Soon others followed, seeking new lands away from the influence of the Australian Agricultural Company, which dominated resources in the Hunter valley, and settled around the present Armidale district. In 1844 there were 454,193 sheep and 43,377 cattle grazing the tablelands region. Armidale was then gazetted as a town in 1849. Squatters soon settled the tablelands with their large sheep runs before Glen Innes and Tenterfield were surveyed in 1851. Armidale is the only city on the Tablelands and is the administrative centre for the Northern Tablelands region.
Colonisation was often violently opposed by the indigenous peoples of New England. There were more than forty documented conflicts in the southern half of the Tablelands between the 1830s and 1860s.