Nothing but the Pub

        Dr Tom Cullity, an idiosyncratic and visionary surgeon, named his first vineyard after the unfortunate Timothée Thomas Joseph Ambroise Vasse who’d disappeared 166 years earlier during a storm at Geographe Bay, some thirty miles north-west of where Tom had found the ideal terroir for his new vines.        Vasse was a young sailor who went missing when members of a landing party from a French naval expedition led by Nicholas Baudin - which had spent over a week exploring the area where Bussleton now stands, was attempting, in heavy surf, to rejoin their ships which had been riding out a storm some miles off-shore.  Nicholas Baudin       To the young midshipman’s surname, Cullity appended, ‘Felix’,     from  the Latin for ‘happy’, ‘blessed’ or ‘fortunate’. It   was an   appellation that’d had come into vogue in what was to   become Australia when, in 18...

   The Woolpack at Parramatta      So, a while back there was a stream of comments about ‘traditional pub grub’ and just what ‘traditional pub grub’ is and it got me thinking and, well, I’ve done little ever since but burrow down an astonishingly interesting rabbit hole of research on the history of Australian pub food.         This isn’t the resulting story – more a despatch from the front line - but it reveals once again why researching our unique pubs is so engrossing and rewarding.         It seemed to make sense to begin by finding out where and when the first pub meals were served in the Colony and it turned out they were probably served up by James Larra at his Freemason’s Arms on the intersection of George and Marsden streets at Parramatta, just down the road from where I grew up in Dundas. Almost my local.   The first mention of food at the pub was by an Irishman in 1800, but it was a Frenchma...

  I always thought rules come in three main categories: Legal rules, agreed rules and - in Oz and Kiwi since around 1910 - Rafferty’s Rules. But, ah, out in Western Queensland they invented a whole new category.  Muttaburra Rules.  I park Super Ten out front of the Muttaburra Pub where someone’s added an ‘S’ in front of its displayed name turning it into the SExchange Hotel and head in past a few old fellas on the small veranda and grab a black fish.   Behind me, high up on one wall of the bar – so high it can’t be used anymore - there’s what I grew up calling a ‘hookey’ board. A round board about 18 inches across with 12 or 13 hooks on it, each with a number from 1 to 13 underneath. Stand back like you do at darts and throw rubber ring seals from mum’s preserving jars at the hooks.   Below this board, pinned to the wall in a plastic sleeve there’s some doggerel verse written on a sheet of paper. I don’t see them when I first walk in but then, first...

  Rafferty's Race at the Royal  (From: The Sydney Mail, July 15th 1931) RAFFERTY had left his sheep just out behind the common, in charge of old Ned, a dog well known in the district. "Let um have a rest and a feed, Ned, old chap; I'll be back before sundown."        Rafferty made his way into the small town-ship only 2½ miles from where Ned stood guard. It was a hot day, and Rafferty's horse could be seen tied up under a shady pepper-tree right in front of the Royal. Rafferty was a queer old chap, and in his humble way he was a born naturalist. You never knew what Rafferty might un-earth from one of his torn coat pockets.         "Well, Rafferty," said the publican, "been catching any more of them specimens of yours lately?"            "Yes," said Rafferty, "I have. Just fill up that pot again, will you? I'm awful thirsty. I'll show you a thing I got only yesterday morning."   ...

 “Whosoever unlawfully and with violence or by any threat of violence  prevents any person from or obstructs him in working at or exercising,  his lawful trade or occupation, or beats or uses any violence or threat  of violence to any such person, with intent to prevent him, shall,  on conviction before two Justices, be liable to imprisonment  for a term not exceeding six months , or a fine not exceeding £20.”        The second time I was in Lockhart in this version of my life was in 2013 and I was on the trail of the Great Shearers’ strikes of the 1880’s and 90’s. Brookong Station, south west of the town on the Urana road was the place where Henry Baylis, the dour Scots Police Magistate from Wagga Wagga read this section of the Riot Act for the first time in the history of the colony.        I booked into the Commercial Hotel in the centre of town – a pub that’d caught my eye 3 years earlier - and then headed out to...

Listen up a bit, this is the story of a very decent pub.  I’m headed east from Tocumwal on the Murray and the rain catches me at Finley but by Corowa I’ve ridden through it and, dry but damn cold, begin heading north, hoping to camp under the bridge I know on Billabong Creek on the Urana Road. But at Walbundrie the pub’s open and the heavens are about to  so I pull in to thaw, drip dry and grab a warming glass of red.  Walbundrie and its pub used be known as Piney Range and this year it'll turn 170 years old.  Across the bar Adam and Lindy are dealing with the end-of-week mob and ‘of course it’s no problem’ to park Super Ten in under the cover of the veranda. I shed some layers and kick back. It’s humming, but not as busy as they’d expected – a  group of twelve had booked for lunch but not fronted (or cancelled) so, with Lindy and her offsider sister, Joanne, who’s come up to help out, handling the drinkers, Adam’s got time to talk and with no more riding t...