On Our Way to Port Douglas – First Stop – Albury

We left home this morning in cloudy and windy weather to begin our drive to Albury for the first day of our road trip to Port Douglas in Far North Queensland.

The best spot for lunch turned out to be the tiny village of Yarck in the upper Goulburn Valley. With a population of less than 200, the town consists of a general store, a hotel, two cafés, a bookstore, and a bakery. The war memorial commemorates those from the district who paid the supreme sacrifice in WWI. The number of names on the memorial illustrates the high level of patriotism at that time in our history.

It began to rain as we left Yark and it continued all afternoon. As a result, most of our sightseeing was done from the window of the car. We took the narrow and winding road to Euroa from Merton, which led us through some interesting granite hills, but we gave up visiting a couple of scenic spots we had planned to see due to the weather. Perhaps we can revisit them sometime in the future.

Euroa is a substantial town located beside Seven Creeks, a tributary of the Goulburn River. The area has long been noted for its fine wool production and its thoroughbred horse industry. However, it is just as famous for its connection to Australia’s most notorious bushranger, Ned Kelly, who once held up the local bank and stole £2000. One of its many grand buildings is the courthouse, constructed in 1892.

Euroa is the only area in the entire Commonwealth to have been home to three Victoria Cross recipients. Three bronze statues, immortalising the bravery of these men — Fred Tubb, Alex Burton, and Leslie Maygar — stand in pride of place. Lieutenant (later Major) Frederick Tubb and Corporal Alexander Burton won their Victoria Crosses in the Lone Pine trenches at Gallipoli in August 1915, repelling a Turkish counterattack. Burton was killed in the attack and awarded his medal posthumously. Tubb died on the Western Front in France two years later. Lieutenant Maygar won his Victoria Cross rescuing a comrade under heavy fire during the Boer War in 1901 and was later killed in action during World War I.

Further north is the tiny town of Glenrowan. it is now bypassed by the Hume Freeway. It is famous for the events of June 1880 when the Kelly Gang, with Ned Kelly dressed in his famous armour, were captured after a violent and bloody siege. Somehow, these criminals have been converted into heros of the poor and underprivileged Australian folklore. None of the buildings from the Kelly era survive, but the town milks their story to an unbelievable extent.

The last town on our visiting list was Chiltern. This is one of those Victorian gold rush towns that seems to have remained largely unchanged since its glory days in the 1850s. On the main street is the National Trust property of Dow’s Pharmacy. A pharmacy has operated on this site for over 160 years. The current building was constructed in 1868, though a pharmacy had been in operation here since 1859. 

Hilda Dow (née Grey) was the pharmacist during most of the 20th century. After she married her husband, John Dow, in 1932, he became her apprentice and received his pharmacy degree in 1936. The pharmacy operated from 1929 until 1969. When it closed, everything inside remained intact. The property was eventually acquired by the National Trust. Some of the stock and equipment even predated Mrs Dow’s tenure, with items from the 19th and early 20th centuries. Medicines, photographic supplies, shop fittings, and other stock in original packaging and display can still be seen in one of the few authentic shops remaining in Australia. 

On leaving Chiltern, we saw a sign pointing to Lakeview Historic House — a large, cool, Victorian-era country-town home with a wide front veranda, dating from the 1870s. The family of Dr Walter Richardson moved into this house in 1876. His daughter, Ethel Florence Lindesay Richardson, who was six at the time, would go on to become one of Australia’s most admired novelists. She wrote under the pseudonym Henry Handel Richardson, as women of her time were less likely to be accepted or succeed under their own names.

We arrived at our hotel in Albury in steady rain at around 4:30 pm. I became a little damp unloading our gear in the rain, but our warm hotel room was very comfortable. Finally — we’ve finished the first day of our six week-long trip.