THIS whole project really commenced as far back as 2007 when Lachlan and his wife Leah, after attending the Murrumbateman Field Days event, decided to return home via the Yass Valley, Rye Park, Rugby, Reids Flat and Bevendale. This region was where some of Lachlan's ancestors had come to live after emigrating from England in the mid to late 19th century. Lachlan had assisted his sister Marianne in the preparation of a book on the family history of the Noakes family which included families of part of this region and further afield to Boorowa, Gundaroo, Jerrawa and Pudmans Creek. Hence there was some considerable interest in knowing what this region really looked like.

On their way home from Murrumbateman, Lachlan and Leah, crossed the Lachlan River at several places in the Upper Lachlan Shire Region. These chance crossings prompted Lachlan to suggest that one day he would like to follow the River and find as many road crossings as possible. This idea, along with Lachlan's keen interest in photography, has led to these most recent journeys along the Lachlan River, where, with Stephen, they have located and photographed 47 road and foot bridges and crossings over the Lachlan River, from Breadalbane to Oxley. Thereby lies the reason for the booklet's title; "Bridging the Lachlan River - Breadalbane to Booligal and Beyond".

Lachlan is a retired Industrial Arts Teacher who specialised in Woodwork and Technical Drawing for around 30 years at schools mainly in the northwest of Sydney.

After teaching, Lachlan was involved with a mapping project at Fairfax Community Newspapers in Sydney.

He was later employed, again by the then NSW Department of Education and Training, at their Staffing Unit, to provide maps of the 40 school districts that were established around 1996, highlighting the location of each school and TAFE College in NSW, on those district maps. When developing these maps, there were towns and schools, which featured on those maps that presented themselves as real places that must be visited some day. This was particularly so with those towns and localities in and around the lower Lachlan River Valley.