The Vandenberg Hotel at Forbes, a great hotel in caring hands

So anyway as I pull into the BP servo at north Forbes, an old bloke’s just paid for his fuel and is shuffling back to his car.

“I’m trying to find the cemetery,” I tell him. He squints into the morning sun and smiles.

“Good luck, mate,” he drawls, “I’m trying to stay out of it.”

He chuckles then tells me to just head out on the Bogan Road and I won’t miss it on my left. I pass a sprinkler fanning water onto the front lawn of a cottage obviously the home to a gardener, make a quick note of its location and then pretty soon the grave paddock appears.

At the gate there’s a map of the various sections. (Heaven forbid a Catholic’s bones had to spend eternity clavicle to clavicle with those of a Protestant!) And there’s also totem post of signs directing to the more famous plots. At the top each such pole is the arrow to Ben Hall’s grave and just below another points to that of Ned Kelly’s sister.

Under a rare tree and with its short white picket fence and padlocked gate, Ben Hall’s grave is unique in this cemetery. Its plastic flowers unfaded and relatively well-maintained, this is obviously a shrine to one of the more enigmatic of our bushrangers. And his headstone doesn't simply say ‘died’ or ^th May 1865”.

‘passed away’ like all its neighbours. Pointedly it just starkly announces: “Ben Hall, shot 5

For me the fascinating thing, however, is that the white pebbles which make up the centrepiece of the plot have been showered with coins - 10’s, 20’s, 50’s and a few dollar pieces. Their significance escapes me and I can find no relevant explanation when I hit google later.  All this might be moot because a distant relative of Hall reckons it’s probably not his bones beneath.

Ben Hall isn’t the main reason I’m here, so I head over to the Jewish section where, unlocked, is the only above-firmament crypt in the entire field.

There’re no signs for the two graves within the only plot here, no well-worn path to its side, no plaque proclaiming the deeds of those interred.  Without infamy, it seems there is no fame.

The graves are the final resting places for the bones of Levy Vandenberg who died in 1894 and his wife, Phoebe who

followed him two years later. And I’m interested in because last night I rested long and deep at Forbes’s Vandenberg Hotel which the same Levy founded three years before Ben Hall was killed.

It was touted back then as the ‘most comfortable hotel on the Western Line and for the 42 years that Levy Vandenberg and then his son owned it, the place was known as the Court House Hotel in recognition of the Local Law Courts directly in front of it across what today is still a magnificent, fountain and shade-filled park.

Like most pubs back then it was always referred to eponymously as “Vandenberg’s” and when it was sold in 1903, probably partly in an effort to cash in on the name and

partly in recognition of the contribution of the family to both the town of Forbes and the pub in particular, the new owner changed the official name to that of the founder.

I’d spent the previous night, a Saturday, camping beside the Cobb Hwy north of Hay and after a 400km ride in 40+ degrees the sight of this grand old hotel with sagging balcony facing out to the park is a vision of pure impending respite.

I park Super Ten out the front and head inside where it’s a very quiet Sunday arvo and owner Grant’s behind the bar and just a couple of fellas on my side.

Grant who runs the place with life-partner, Kim is a short barrel of a bloke with a bull neck beginning at the top of his ears. No surprise to hear that he spent a few winters with his noggin in a scrum playing for Wenty in the Parramatta comp.

He grew up on a farm out Tullamore way but sold up in 1990 and moved to Sydney where as he says, ‘ things turned sour very quickly.’ He worked in the hotel at Cremorne opposite

Mike Walsh’s cinema and at night returned to an empty flat. But he learnt the ropes of pub work and in 2002 returned to Forbes and bought one of the ten pubs in town, the second oldest in the place, The Vandenberg.

It was a baptism of fire and it wasn't a learning curve, more like a vertical cliff!

He took possession on December 14^th just in time for the Christmas rush and he remembers thinking midway through his first day, “What the fuck have I taken on here?”

On New Years Eve the temps hit 47 degrees and his beer lines went down. Service was bottles only. It could only get better in the coming year he figured.

Things settled down and he got the hang of it, trying different things. He’s twice had TAB betting in the place but, “it does bugger all for the pub and it does bugger all to attract the people I want in the place – families,” so he got rid of it. For now there’s five pokies out the back somewhere and Keno in the bar to cater for those who think life itself isn’t a big enough gamble.

In February 2009 the Vandenberg became the oldest pub in Forbes when the Albion hotel just 12 months older and just up the road was burnt down. It was the week of the annual Bedgerabong Races and the town was packed but fortunately no-one was staying there that night.

“It was an amazing fire,” chimes in one of the locals, “ there was a howling southerly blowing but there wasn't a storm or anything and a bloke swore he saw lightning

hit the pub’s tower which was at the north end of the pub. So how the flames spread so fast against a wind like that was incredible.”

The heritage listed building was beyond repair and a sculpture park has been created on its grave.   My hat’s off to the curator!

One of the biggest works is a rampant bull. I can’t help but wonder whether the artist was across Aussie slang and intended it to be a red steer or perhaps just a load of bull. Another work is a take on Rodin’s “The Thinker’.

Since then three other pubs in Forbes have closed leaving the town with six.

I pull out some old clippings about the pub and the Vandenbergs in the 1800’s and early 1900’s and Grant is across them all. Like some sort of poker game, he pulls out his own collection including

some totally new to me. Here’s a publican who fully embraces the story of his place and who acutely feels a sense of custody towards it.

He ducks out to get something and I turn to Craig who’s sitting next to me, his walking frame parked beside.  He’s probably nudging 50 or so and he’s “been busted up by horses, by bulls, by coming off second best at too many rodeos. I’m not too bad now – last year I was in a wheelchair but now I can drive and work.”

I ask him the best way to get back to Sydney where I’m headed in the morning.

“Would you go via Canowindra and Carcoar?”

“Nah I wouldn't go that way.”

“Ah, so you’d head to Toogong and Orange, eh?’

“Nah I wouldn't go that way.”

“So which way would you go?”

“Ah,” he pauses, “I wouldn't go. I went there when I was around 19 and didn't like it. Couldn't see what the fuss was about.”

When Grant gets back he’s holding a silver trophy cup.  A few years back a letter arrived at the pub addressed simply to the ‘Publican’.  It was a letter from an old lady up near Surfers Paradise

and it had some photos of this cup which she’d bought at a garage sale about 20 years previously. The inscription showed it’d been presented by L. Vandenberg to the local cricket team in 1900.

Grant didn't trust the post so he jumped in his car and drove to Queensland, forked over 50 bucks (“I would’ve paid ten times that!”) and brought it back to its “only rightful place”.

The locals have evaporated and now I’m the only one in the bar, but even empty, the place has a homely feel. There’s no food on Sundays but the RSL is right next door and ‘if you want a feed, you’ve got to get there before 8.30,’ so I unload the bike and park it in the closeable walkway at the side of the pub.

Upstairs the rooms are exceptional for the price. Each has its own jug and brew makings, air-con plus a ceiling fan, electric blankets, television and most, like mine, open out onto the balcony from where Nellie Melba once sang.

There’re separate bathrooms and toilets for men and women although the water pressure is so weak it must be prostate affected.

In the morning I have a brew on the balcony and watch the sun slowly bathe the town hall just off to my right before heading out to the cemetery.

On the way back I stop at the house where the sprinkler is now showering plants inside the front fence, knock on the door and ask the elderly lady for a favour. Ask I hold the sprinkler head over my head and down my jacket, soaking every part of me, she tells me about what a great job Grant and Kim are doing at the pub and for the town.

She also tells me the common theory about the burning of the Albion but to print that here, like the possibility that Ben Hall is not under his headstone and like not maintaining and highlighting the crypt of the Vandenbergs, would be a grave mistake.