The Long and Winding Ride: Episode 8 – Beechworth to Gapsted: Back in the Ovens

  The Long and Winding Ride

 

 

Episode 8 Beechworth to Gapsted: Back in the Ovens

 

A leisurely morning walk around Baarmutha Park in Beechworth sets the tone for a day of downhill cycling to Gapsted via Everton. The first section of the ride follows the Murray to Mountains Rail Trail (M2M) to Everton where we pause for lunch before an afternoon cycle along the Myrtleford to Everton section of the M2M with our destination the small settlement of Gapsted in the foothills of the Stanley Range. Our main focus will be on the M2M itself – one of Australia’s best known and most popular rail trails.

 

Stage 8 Beechworth to Gapsted

 

As promised at the conclusion to Episode 7 we start at Baarmutha Park, the home ground of the Beechworth Bushrangers, and before them, the Beechworth Bombers. The centre stage at Baarmutha Park is the Pioneer Park Recreation Reserve with its 128 year old grandstand. The National Trust heritage listed building is a rare example of a surviving nineteenth century grandstand in Victoria, in the same company as the stands at Ballarat (1898)  and Bendigo (1901). In stark contrast, around on the wing you will see a 21st Century structure – a shiny new electronic scoreboard.

 

Baarmutha Park grandstand (source: Heritage Council Victoria)

 

Baarmutha Park (Google maps)

 

Let’s turn the pages of an 1896 Beechworth newspaper and read the first part of a colourful account of a rather unusual football match at Baarmutha Park when two Chinese football teams put on the entertainment. Billy Nutts was the match reporter (Ovens and Murray Advertiser 29 August 1896).

“Ching a ring a ching chang, cling clang clong, Ting a ring a ting tang, dong ding dong, Dam a rum a turn turn, ping pang boom, Tingle tingle ling lang, bing bang poom.

At least that’s how it appeared to me on Saturday afternoon, when instead of the gorgeous procession which I, like many more, had expected to see winding its sinuous course, like a monstrous snake with glittering scales, from the Chinese camp, in the many hued glory of barbaric splendour, we were greeted with the ignoble alternative of an ordinary cab, filled with Celestial musicians who discoursed anything but celestial harmony, each performer seemingly pervaded with the ambitious desire to extract as much noise, from his particular instrument as possible, with a consequent dissonance simply excruciating to the untrained ears of European barbarians, and which startled even the usually phlegmatic cab horses from their ordinary propriety, and inspired them to unwonted spirited gambols.”

 

Space does not permit inclusion of the full report, but I commend it if you have 10 minutes up your sleeve: you can read the report Here.

 

Beechworth’s  football journey has been quite a labyrinthine one as the following time sequence suggests. Beechworth formed a football club in 1861, although there are no records of matches until after the club was re-formed in 1876. In the years between 1878 and 1891, Beechworth played regular matches against other mining towns such as Chiltern and Rutherglen. In the late 1880s and early 1890s Beechworth had two football teams – Beechworth and Wanderers. The two clubs merged in 1892 as the Beechworth Wanderers FC  becoming an inaugural member of the Ovens and Murray FA in 1893, winning premierships in 1893, 1894 and 1897. The 1897 flag was won by Beechworth in a grand final match against Rutherglen. Prior to that no actual finals were conducted; the team finishing on top of the ladder at the conclusion of the home and away games was declared the premier team. 

 

Beechworth remained in the O&MFA, apart from several seasons in recess, until 1904 whereupon they joined the North East Central FA, followed by the Ovens and King FA in 1905. It was in this company that Beechworth again had great success, winning three consecutive premierships in the years immediately prior to WWI. After the war they returned to the O&KFA for five seasons before re-joining the O&MFA for a five year stint. In 1929 the club went back to the O&KFL until the WWII recess. After the war Beechworth joined the Chiltern and District FL for one season. In 1946 the Bombers reunited with the O&KFL where they won three flags in the first half of the 1950s decade. 

 

In 2004 Beechworth moved to the Tallangatta and District FL and with that, by necessity, came a new name – the Beechworth Bushrangers. In total the club, in its various incarnations, has won 14 flags in the O&KFL, three in the O&MFL and one in the T&DFL.

 

Beechworth has been the football cradle of at least a dozen VFL players, most notably: Albert Trim (South Melbourne 1898-1901 and Carlton 1903-04),  Allan Mullenger (South Melbourne 1939-44) and Fred Pemberton (St Kilda 1948-50).

 

Rail trails are shared-use paths created in abandoned railway corridors that can be used for walking, cycling and horse riding. They are not only found in Australia, but also in many other countries including the USA, Canada and the United Kingdom. Rail trails have benefits apart from the obvious opportunities for users to enjoy recreational adventures largely free from the dangers and noise of busy roads. They also serve as linear wildlife corridors, protecting native plants and animals. While the railway tracks, sleepers and signs are usually removed, remnants of the infrastructure can remain, such as cuttings, embankments, platforms and bridges.

 

Construction of the Murray to Mountains Rail Trail began in 1993 at Bright and was completed in 2002. The official opening of the M2M in September 2002 was conducted at Everton Station accompanied by a gourmet lunch. We will take our lunch cues for this stage accordingly.

 

The rail trail stretch from Everton Station to Beechworth was a branch line off the Wangaratta to Bright railway line. It has one of the steepest grades that was allowed for a broad-gauge branch line. This section of the M2M network is my favourite. For most of its length the trail is distant from roads, giving the rider a peaceful experience of bush and farmland. Cycling through the cuttings and along the ridge lines delivers an appreciation of the railway line’s construction and what it would have been like to travel on a train to Beechworth in days long gone. Some of those journeys would have been by special trains to and from football matches and we can imagine the revelry aboard after a win. Today we are heading south west, downhill to Everton.

 

Lunch stop

Everton Station is an ideal place to stop for a bite to eat. It has seating, shelter, toilets and a rainwater tank. A baguette filled with prosciutto, brie and caramelized onion jam, procured from Beechworth, will do nicely. After a quick ride to the Everton pub 3km down the road, we can refresh the fluids. Here at the ‘Evo’ the outlook over the Ovens River valley promises days of adventure and epicurean delights.

 

Everton entered a football team in the Ovens and King Association in 1907 when Beechworth and Wangaratta shifted their affiliations to the Ovens and Murray League. After two seasons Everton moved back to the Bright Association, but returned to the O&K in 1920. Everton folded in 1933, its viability largely determined by the fortunes of the local molybdenite mine. The mine opened in 1916 and was operated intermittently until the 1940s.

 

After a relaxing refreshment break at Everton we hop back onto the M2M and pedal towards Gapsted. Soon the downhill pleasure of the morning’s ride becomes a faint memory as the grade is all uphill from Bowman Station to Taylor’s Gap. But the sights along the way are worth the effort as we pass vineyards and old tobacco drying sheds, confirming this could be nowhere else other than the Myrtleford district. Upon arrival at Gapsted we head straight for the wine estate of the same name for a late afternoon’s taste of your choice – Chardonnay or Pinot Noir?

 

The ‘Gappa’: like scores of country sports grounds, footy is lost but cricket has endured.

 

Gapsted won the Ovens FA  in 1913, 1918 and 1919. Next the blue and white’s won the Bright and District League premiership in 1930 and again in 1936. The latter victory was a nail-biting one point win over Valley Rovers in a splendid struggle during which the lead changed nine times.

 

Next episode

In stage 9 we make our way to Milawa where epicurean delights of fine wine and food await our arrival.

 

 

More from Peter Clark can be read Here.

 

 

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Our writers are independent contributors. The opinions expressed in their articles are their own. They are not the views, nor do they reflect the views, of Malarkey Publications.

 

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