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...