Von Rieben Hotel, 1855 -1880 at North West Bend, South Aust.
In 1849, aged 40, Hermann Von Rieben, with his 24 year old
wife, Louisa and their two young kids, left Hamburg, Germany aboard the
chartered ‘Princess Louise’ bound for Adelaide via Rio. They arrived that
August and, after a few years of dissatisfied farming on the Gawler River,
settled, in 1854 on the west bank of a small flowing anabranch of the Murray
River just south of where it decides to stop its east to west course and turns
south for Goolwa.
The site was close to the droving track for cattle and
sheep from the vast expanses of western
NSW and Qld to the markets of Adelaide – the only route not involving the risky
swimming of cattle across this country’s greatest river.
He felled red gums and built a homestead from their slabs
combined with clay. But soon he was quarrying the local hills for sandstone to
make a more permanent dwelling with a roof from thatched river reeds.
There was no-one else living within cooee and it didn't take
him long to realise that the regular trickle of travellers dropping in could be
turned into an income stream.
In late 1854 he applied for a general publican’s license but
Hermann wasn't much for red tape and bureaucracy. This first application was refused
when he failed to bother attending the licensing hearing.
In March the next year when he got his act together and
actually fronted the Licensing Bench of the local court, he had more luck and,
as the papers announced, Mr Hermann Von Rieben was granted a new license for the
North West Bend of the River Murray.
He extended his house to make it a public house, dug a deep
cellar and took over the job as local postmaster.
It didn't take him too long to be back in a different type
of court. In May 1855 a bloke named Charles Walker and who the Adelaide Times
labelled a ‘notorious swindler’, relieved Hermann of £15,6s, pretending to be
Mounted Policeman.
Walker was nicked 320 kilometres away in Victoria, still
with over 12 quid in pockets of the pants that Von Rieben had also kitted him
out with.
HVR was reunited with what was left of his funds, the fate
of his pants is less certain. He mightn’t have been an expert in picking
fraudsters but at setting up and running a half decent pub, it sounds like he
was more adept.
In March 1856, just on a year since he first jagged his
license, the South Australian Register’s travelling reporter did the first TripAdvisor
review of the place:
“…. at Von Rieben's .. (the traveller will).. meet with every accommodation, and every
comfort he could expect, and more than he could expect. The hostess is most
attentive and obliging, and the
The writer and his mates were intimidated by the size of the
mozzies: “Mosquitoes were three or four times the size of ordinary mosquitoes, and
we were in some alarm, as to the possible results of such gigantic enemies”
But they were soon more relaxed: ‘but we found that it was with them as with other enemies — the
bulkiest are not always the greatest tormentors.”
In 1866 again his disdain for the due process was to the
fore when his license was renewed subject to a “caution to send the application in in time next year.”
In 1858 Hermann found himself on the ‘wrong’ side of the
courthouse. As the Adelaide Observer put
it, “For some time past great annoyance has been felt
by the settlers on the Murray through the aborigines having been continually
supplied with intoxicating drink.”
The local plod, Police Trooper Drought (truly!)
invented fiendish plan: disguise himself as a bird-fancier, ingratiate himself
with the aborigines and catch the suppliers red-handed.
What could go wrong?
He busted nine people but five on them were itinerant
shearers who cut out when they identified the bird fancier and so he was left
with just four, amongst whom was HVR!
But here’s a weird bit: Von Rieben was fined £3.00
plus costs as was another publican going by the name of Thomas Taylor. But
Taylor was listed in the newspaper reports as being the innkeeper at North West
Bend, while Hermann was described as being of Mallyon’s Hotel, River Murray.
There’s no record that I can find of HVR transferring
his pub to anyone and no record of him decamping 15 miles up the river to
Mallyon’s so I’m figuring this is, to use the phrase of the day, ‘fake news’.
Von Rieben didn't just run his pub. He also loved his
thoroughbreds and was a better judge of horse flesh than human scoundrals.
And in those days, horses were real horses. None of
this Winx rubbish where they run half a dozen times a season – nah! Back then
they raced a few times a day.
At the Blanchetown Races of 1873 the card included the
Publicans’ Purse of three one and a half mile heats. Von Rieben’s King of the
Ring came second in the first heat but then took out the other two to be
declared the winner.
But hey, three races in a day hardly earns a horse its
hay so Von Rieben had it run in another three heats of the same distance for
the ‘Adelaide Purse’. This time it came home first in the first race but second
in the other two to be declared overall second.
So that was six races of a mile and a half (around
2,000 metres) each in one afternoon. Not a bad day’s work! (And then I’m
guessing it was ridden the 40kms home!)
Like so many of his countrymen who stayed back nearer
to Adelaide and began viticulture in the Adelaide Hills and the Barossa, HVR
liked the fermented grape and planted not just vines but also vegetables around
his pub.
And in a land where even the local cop’s name is
‘drought’, slaking the thirst of the crops was a major challenge. Von Rieben
designed and had built a literally ground breaking irrigation system involving
pumps and channels.
And they worked!
In 1884 the Kapunda Herald saluted his efforts:
“We have been shown
some fine tomatoes and nice cobs of maize grown on the banks of the Murray by
Mr. Von Reiben. The products show what can be dene by irrigation, as the seed
of both were planted in December, no rain falling until the fruit was gathered.
The plants were kept growing vigorously by water from the Murray.”
This was quite a guy!
Von Rieben’s hotel more than an oasis of food, drink,
lodging and rest. It became a landmark to an extent few other pubs ever have.
In 1865 a motion in South Australia’s State Parliament for
the sinking of a potentially life saving well near the Murray’s bend called
for, “an extent not exceeding £500 or
such other sum as may be sufficient, for the purpose of sinking a well and
forming a tank on the road between Von Reibens (sic) on the River Murray, and
Kapunda”
In 1884, well after the pub had closed, ‘Sketcher’ wrote of
a hunting trip to the Murray for the Adelaide Observer and after a fruitless
hunt for rabbits to shoot, “resolved
that we should try the lagoon near Von Rieben's.”
Rabbits were in short supply but after “a drink of water at what was known as Von
Rieben's”, the party headed to
the lagoon just out the back and spotted some pelicans: “A momentary halt, a double report, and one of the huge birds lay with
his long beak sunk in the water, a few faint tremors agitating his snowy
breast, while his companions flew away”
Ah the good old days!!
(And if you know what pelican tastes like, please, I
don't want to know.)
Hermann died in May 1879 and his property passed to
his wife Louisa in whose name the pub’s licence was renewed the following year.
He was buried in a small plot a little up-river from the hotel, and his grave,
along with those of his three children who died, probably of diphtheria in
1860, can still be seen. The wall built to protect the graves has done its job
well. Not even the infamous 1956 flood damaged this holy ground.
By the time of Hermann’s death, things were changing rapidly
at the north west bend of the Murray. In 1878 Morgan had been proclaimed a town
and land auctioned. Soon a wharf was built to service the river trade - the
post office service was removed from Von Reibens.
In his annual report to the Adelaide Licensing Branch for
the year of 1881, Inspector Bee noted that “(t)here
have been closed during the year two houses, viz ‘The Tavistock, at Callington
and Von Rieben’s, at North-West Bend.”
So after just 26 years, this landmark of the South
Australian outback, described in just its second year as, “a point of essential importance to the tourist in this district (of the
north west corner of the Murray),” closed its doors to guests and travellers.
Despite being delicensed it remained the family home.
In February 1880, Hermann’s widow, Louisa, transferred the
title of the land to her elder son, Hermann Junior who only held it for two
months before selling it to a John Field.
Field’s wife named the property Brenda Park which it
remained for a short time until the next
owner changed it only for Hermann Junior to buy it back again in 1895 and to
change the name back to Brenda Park.
It’s retained this name ever since.
------
Back in 1881 the Advertiser complimented the two new hotels
in Morgan, the Commercial and the Terminus, describing them as, “both fine
buildings … afford(ing) excellent accommodation.”
Both still stand on Railway Terrace, separated only by
Eighth St, and overlooking the mighty river. The host at the Terminus is Phil
whom I first met when he was running the Royal down on the Victorian Coast at
Portland.
Turns out that between those two gigs, he worked for six
months down at Brenda Park amongst the vines. I tell him I’m headed there and
when I finish my lunch and get ready to head out, he rings ahead to let the
managers know I’m on the way.
Ten minutes later I’m turning off the bitumen into a wide
entry of the Vineyard and waiting for me are Geoff, the general manager and his
wife Lyn.
Brenda Park and the Scotts Creek Vineyard are now owned by
the Byrne Family who’ve been in the wine business for over 50 years and Geoff
and Lyn have been here since 2016.
It’s obvious from the get-go that these two love this place,
that they’re passionate about what they’re doing, are across the history of it
and share that priceless feeling of being entrusted with the custody of a
living organic entity.
The ruins I’m interested in are a tiny but important fragment
of the property which includes 280 hectares growing eight types of grape of
which just on half is shiraz and reisling and over 400 hectares of managed
wetlands.
I park Super Ten, unload the cameras and recording gear and
jump aboard their 4WD for the ride down to the lagoon and the hotel ruins.
Geoff and Lyn talk of their eco-lodge project and the
As we head down toward the lagoon, through the green vines
on soil roads that move from grey to red and back again, Geoff explains the
history, shows the wombat tracks on the far hillside, the terraces for
irrigation streams cut into the banks. On top of the levee banks are remnants
of the light rail system which used horses to pull the produce to the port at
Morgan.
We pass beside an overhead aquaduct, also constructed by
Wilcox, its supports being left over light rail tracks.
And then, at the far edge of the vines, before the drop to
the billabong, before us are the ruins of Von Rieben’s North West Bend Hotel.
And they are worth the trip. My hosts know this place – know
it very well. First a quick circumnavigation, and I check out all the angles as
Geoff explains the structure’s various components with Lynn interjecting with
other POI’s.
Then I clamber inside, into what must’ve been the old
barroom with its fireplace and then the adjoining cellar and the guest rooms at
the end. For a pub tragic like me, this is akin to a Druid climbing over
Stonehenge.
We walk the hundred metres or so up to the walled graveyard.
Inside there’re just two headstones. Hermann shares his with his three infant
children; Rolly (aged 8), Amelia (6) and Malchin who was taken when just one
year old.
I stand and try to imagine the unspeakable sorrow of being
out here in the 1860’s and losing three of your precious children to the same
epidemic and all within several months.
Our mood is more somber as we head back up the hill and
conversation turns to the modern products of the vines.
Six Byrne Family wines carry the label of Scotts Creek. In
recognition of the tranquillity of this place three of them, a Shiraz, a Shiraz
Grenache and a Chardonnay bear the appellation, ‘Retreat’.
The other three, a Shiraz, a Semillon Sauvignon Blanc and a
Chardy are branded “Growling Frog”.
The notes for these last bottles on the company’s website reflect
much of their commitment to the environment and the quality of their product.
“Inside each bottle of Growling Frog
lies a wine that is just as precious as the frog for which it is named. The
Growling Grass Frog is an endangered species, but their presence in the 870
hectares of Scotts Creek wetlands, one of South Australia’s largest, is a sure
sign of a healthy natural ecosystem.”
Back in 1856 review which I quoted
above, the mozzies weren’t the only wildlife noted by the author: “The air was filled with
the cries of birds of every description,” he wrote
before mentioning also, “the croaking of
innumerable frogs…”
Very likely these were the ancestors of the same frogs
which today have found a safe home in the wetlands managed by the Byrne Family
and especially by Geoff and Lyn, and which have inspired a range of fine
drinking wines.
Von Rieben’s hotel ruins are a fascinating, must-visit
stop for anyone seriously into the history of pubs and the culture of drinking
in this country. But they are deep in private property and I ask Geoff and Lyn
the best way for interested travellers to gain access.
Geoff responds: “We’re trying to reinvigorate this place because it’s all just such a
great story and we want to share it with people. We’ve taken many travellers
down to the ruins including descendants of Von Rieben so we are happy to
accommodate enquires.”
The best way to go is send them an email explaining your
interest. They’re both busy people but I reckon attaching a selfie of yourself with a bottle of Byrne Family
wine just might get you a quicker response!
The address is: lyna@byrnevineyards.com.au
I turn Super Ten south for the run to Swan Reach and
under my helmet I smile: My bucket list has one less entry!
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