In 1840 cedargetters came to the Northern Rivers area chasing the red gold (red cedar trees whose wood was worth more than gold) in order to make their fortunes. A lot of the cedar, which had taken centuries to grow, was originally used to decorate the fine homes of colonial Sydney, being used for doors, wainscoting, architraves and elegant pieces of furniture. The wood was valuable, beautiful, hard, red, and termite-resistant. Cedar logs were hauled out by bullock trains or rolled down sloped grounds, called ‘shoots’ to nearby rivers. From there they were floated to the ocean and surfed to awaiting ships to take to Sydney and overseas. “Cedar-pirates” often stole stock-piled logs.   The cedar getters wedged planks into the tree so they could cut above the wet bottom of the tree and also so it would roll uniformly down the hill. By the 1870s there weren’t many tall, centuries old cedar trees left in NSW as they had been felled and sold.