Spicer's Gap and nearby Governor’s Chair are discovered along the road to Cunningham’s Gap travelling between Warwick and Tenterfield. The track through Spicers Gap was once a well worn path followed by bullocks and drivers in the early part of the nineteenth century as a route for the cartage of wool and timber to the Brisbane River. It is not known by the author whether the route first passed through Cunningham’s Gap or whether an alternative route to Spicers was used.

Nevertheless, the track was an experience of terror for the early drivers. The steep and precipitous decline was navigated by the sea-going practice of towing a huge log of timber to slow the bullock trains down on descent.

The view from Governor’s Chair is simply unsurpassed in Australia. Originally known as Governor’s Rock, the chair was named after Governor-General Sir Charles Fitzroy in 1854. Queensland’s first Governor – Sir George Bowen – paid regular visits to this spot. It is said that in the 1860s Bowen journeyed all the way from Brisbane to feast his eyes on the “incomparable panorama”. Other notable visitors to the chair were Lord Lamington, after whom Lamington National Park is named, and Thomas Henry Huxley, grandfather of author Aldous Huxley, a British scientist who travelled throughout Australia photographing Aborigines. © LBH