Traced to its beginning, it is generally found to have originated upon a waste piece of ground, where some Squatters settled and built their cabins.
"Hodge and His Masters"
Richard Jefferies
Since I had first explored that country to which my wheel-tracks marked and led the way, station after station had been taken up by Squatters, not by following any line of route, but rather according to the course of the river, for the sake of water; and in such cases, the beaten track from station to station, no matter how crooked, becomes the road.
"Journal of an Expedition into the Interior of Tropical Australia In Search of a Route from Sydney to the Gulf of Carpentaria (1848) by Lt. Col. Sir Thomas Livingstone Mitchell Kt. D.C.L. (1792-1855) Surveyor-General of New South Wales"
Thomas Mitchell
We reached plains, and came upon an old track of the Squatters.
"Journal of an Expedition into the Interior of Tropical Australia In Search of a Route from Sydney to the Gulf of Carpentaria (1848) by Lt. Col. Sir Thomas Livingstone Mitchell Kt. D.C.L. (1792-1855) Surveyor-General of New South Wales"
Thomas Mitchell