The Buckleys Crossing Hotel, Dalgety. One of the Coulda been Capitals!

Back in the 1890’s the various colonies of the antipodes got together and drew up a joint constitution. After a few referenda they’d all decided to live together as one. Being old school, they sought parental permission and the Poms passed the Commonwealth of Australia Constitution Act for us in 1900 and the whole thing was consummated on January 1^st, 1901.

It’s article 44 of this constitution that’s been forcing the dual national parliamentarians out of their offices and back to reality, but let’s get onto another part.

Further down, Article 125 of the Constitution mandated the creation of a national capital somewhere within NSW but more than 100 miles from Sydney. It took ‘em nine years to get their shit together and actually settle on the Yass-Canberra.

But before this was finally chosen, a few other towns went real, I mean really real, close to getting the gig. One of these ‘Coulda been Capitals’, one of the very last to slip off the list was Dalgety.

A bunch of Senators had a junket to check out the town’s claims early in 1902 and a coupla months later a mob from the lower house also made the trip. Seems they didn't like the journey – the road was too twisting and tortuous.  But they raved about the beauties of the place.

So: a challenging serpentine route to a glorious destination eh? I loaded Super Ten and set the Garmin for this place down on the Snowy River.

By mid-arvo I’m ordering scones, jam, cream and coffee from Julie at the Iona Café (and Nursery) on the welcoming corner at the entrance to the town. Everything’s homemade and damn fine and as I grab some groceries Julie gives me a rundown of the history of the place.

Now if you’re after a decent hotel in Dalgety, population 70, you’ve pretty much got None and Buckley’s, although this isn’t as dire as it sounds. The settlement used to be known as Buckley’s Crossing after the bloke who ran the first punt across the Snowy, and the only drinking hole in town is The Buckley’s Crossing Hotel next door to the café.

I park Super Ten out front as the low western sun breaks through between the dark clouds and I scramble for my cameras.  

Back in 1881 the esteemed Manaro Mercury ran a sweet piece attributed simply to, “ A Shearer” entitled, “A Day at Buckley’s Crossing”. He wrote of pulling up at the pub on a hot, dry December day and, “(p)utting my blood in the stable, I entered the bar, and in a reasonable time got outside sufficient liquid to counteract the effects of the drought in the immediate vicinity of my mouth.”

Pretty soon the shearer hooks up with a half-blind local who invites him outside for a quieter drink on the balcony. “I could not refuse … this; so we adjourned and I said I would take bottled beer. This was an article my one-eyed friend informed me that had not yet reached Buckley's”.

When the rump of pollies rocked up in1902, they had the usual straggling retinue of freeloading mayors and random self-important fleas with too much time on

their hands all looking for fresh air and a daily cornucopia of free feeds and booze.

Also bundying on was a single paparazzo, E.T.Luke and a swarming mass of writers who sent back the usual platitudinous gibber. Much more entertaining coverage was the blog of one of the pollies,

Senator Colonel J.C. Neild who dryly described the mob as ‘pilgrims’ and wondered biblically at the outset, “can any good come out of Nazareth?”

His epistles got him offside with other pollies who decried him as ‘disloyal’ and with the press who bitched he was encroaching on their turf.

Meanwhile the SMH’s moaning scribe didn't like much including the town’s moniker: “The name is very much against Buckley's Crossing. There is not a shadow of a doubt that Buckley's Crossing as a name of a place invites flippant allusions, and had it been called Snowy River Ford,

or Snowy Rapids, or some other appropriate name with some claim to be impressive, this important party of tourists could not have based so many refreshing witticisms upon it”.

Luckily the snouts in the junket trough didn't give a rat’s arse about the name. The Daily Telegraph’s reporter noted, “It is alleged on good authority that Mr. Commissioner Oliver once said that the district had more than "Buckley's chance" of the capital.”

(The place ended up growing on the Herald’s bloke as well. He was forced to admit that “Buckley's Crossing … is in the centre of a magnificent stretch of country. If the capital is in this direction, the Dalgety district will be a fashionable tourist resort,” he opined.)

His mates in the press corps must’ve agreed for it was here they took their only selfie of the trip.

When I head into the bar, hoping the publican’s decided to give bottles a go so I can eliminate the drought in the vicinity of my gob, six familiar faces greet me from the wall beside the door.

It’s one of Edward Luke’s priceless images of that 1902 senators’ trip. It shows half a dozen of the Senators having a morning dip in the Snowy just down the road.  The Herald journalist had noted: “Early next morning many of the party walked down to the Snowy River and

plunged into its waters which proved extraordinarily cold, and gave severe testimony of their source in snow mountains.” It’s just one of a collection of old photos on the walls- always a reassuring sign.

I needn’t have worried about the beer options. The fridges are full of choices from both majors and there’s a choice of five draughts and a cider at the taps.

The workers are not yet in and Ellyse is on her own behind the bar, so I grab a long neck and my room key and head out to unload. The pub’s design is very old school. There’s no internal access to the rooms. Instead, each room has a single door opening onto the west facing verandah so it’s an easy job to unload the bike between slugs from the longie.

Then it’s grab the camera and an afternoon stroll. Right opposite Julie’s café is a laneway to the Snowy River and as I head down the remains of one of the

original pubs and the old blacksmith’s shop are on the left and then

between two towering poplars bathing in the low sun, is the river.

This is the site of the original Buckley’s Crossing of the river, a place where sand and gravel banks on either side provided the shallowest stretch for miles.

In the distance the horizon is defined by a long sweep of hills and slap in the middle is a recognizable mound.

Edward Luke took a number of images in Buckley’s Crossing including a shot of the senators crossing the river here in a couple of carriages. I might be wrong but the rolling hill that defines the horizon in his photograph is the same as the peak that’s framed by the two beautiful trees at the end of the track.

Just why they’re crossing here instead of using the bridge which was opened a decade earlier just a tyre lever chuck down river is anyone’s guess!

The bridge was sure there then, Neild writing: “a brief stoppage was made for soda water. Then across the handsome bridge which marks the site of Buckley's Crossing,  ….  intersected by the beautiful stream of the Snowy River— clear as a diamond.”

Mentions of stops for ‘soda water’ regularly punctuate Neild’s dispatches back to civilization and I think we can be pretty sure he used it in the way my dad used to use, ‘sherbert’.

Anyway, I get back to the pub as utes are beginning to pull up around the side. Seems the front where I’ve left Super Ten is not the place to leave the wheels.

Wednesday is badge draw night so Debbie the boss is expecting a decent turn up. In a corner Richard is holding court with some other locals. He’s the previous publican, sold it to Debbie and her sister and he reckons they’re doing a great job.

Then in comes Margaret. She won the badge draw two weeks back when it was worth $900.00 and she’s going to enter but figures it’d be nice if someone else took it home this week.

Margaret lobbed in town to work as a nurse at the local hospital and on the second evening after shift, headed to the pub, met Cecil on the steps, fell in love and stayed here for the 62 years since.

“I can’t see any reason to leave. When I do it’ll be in a box.” Cecil passed away a few years back, long after the hospital closed down and she seems to be related to most of the town. It’s one of her grandsons who brings in the meat trays for the community raffles each Friday whilst another grandson invites me out to where he’s shearing a local mob in the morning.

Other locals join the convo. One helpfully counsels me not to bother eating echidna coz, though they’re surprisingly easy to skin, they’re full of bones and the meat’s not all that flash. I tell him I’ll keep that in mind.

It’s that kind of night: full of laughs and stories and good humour which any rider will enjoy. Forget article 44 or 125, a place like this is good for your constitution!