PUBOFTHEMONTH
KEEP ON RIDIN’
In search of more than beer WORDS/PHOTOSCOLIN WHELAN
“(A)
GOOD INN
exists,” wrote
Paul McGuire
in his‘Inns of Australia’ in 1952, “to
provide good food, good drink, good beds, with
good manners, ... (unfortunately there are in
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vocation ..... creatures whose only interest is
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If you’re reading this in the hope
of hearing about a great pub that’ll
welcome you and your mates for the
day and the night, that will offer up
something memorable and make
the trip to it worthwhile, I’m sorry
but you’re gonna have to come
back in a month.
It ain’t uncommon for half, maybe
a bit over half even, of the pubs I
visit to be marked with a ‘not worth
it’ but this month, having been post
knee-replacement house-bound for
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would lift the spirits.
So I pointed Super Ten south from
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of the Lachlan River for the beginning
of a yarn about the pubs along its full
length, - and to catch up with a couple
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might have some stories.
Now, hands up any old rider who’s
travelled the Hume and not been
booked at Breadalbane before the
bypass went in! Or Bookham, or
Tarcutta or Holbrook! Ah the good
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The days when you’d fold a tenner
inside your paper licence in your wallet
so it’d just fall out when you produced
for the plod! Although I remember the
bloke at Tarcutta would want double
that to walk back to his car.
Nowadays Breadalbane is a billabong.
The straightening of the Hume has
seen it become a quiet backwater, and
also seen its last remaining pub close.
The source of the Lachlan is behind
the old cemetery just out from the
town. The black cattle eye me but then
mostly ignore me as I wade through
the grass to get some shots.
Then it’s up the road a bit to
catch up with Shlomi, who, with his
wife and daughters, lives in the old
Breadalbane Inn, established by a
bloke named Lodge in the 1860’s.
In 1863 the place was held up
by bushrangers and 110 years
before Patty Hearst fell in love
with her kidnappers and made the
term famous, Lodge embraced his‘Stockholm Syndrome’ and threw his
lot in with Frank Gardiner, Ben Hall
and the Clarke Brothers.
Suspecting (rightly) that he was
trading information for a cut from the
robbery proceeds, the cops retaliated
by busting Lodge for major crimes like
‘permitting drunkeness’ and ‘allowing
music and dancing’.
When Lodge dislodged, the pub was
taken over by John Hannan who’s
buried just up the road.
I get all this info from Shlomi, who
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knows it; it’s part of him and he’s part
of it. At some stage the pub’s name
changed to its current Sweetwood
Lea and as we stand on the front
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cleaning the attic: John Hannan’s 1876
Publican’s License.
It’s a bloody shame this place
isn’t still a pub with a publican like
Shlomi running it. A place with
history and a custodian who cares is
the elusive combination!
The three pubs of Breadalbane were
the closest to the beginnings of the
Lachlan’s waters and after bidding
Israeli Shlomi ‘shalom’ I head up to
the local cemetery to check out John