Day Trips: Nagambie and more

It was built in 1890 and is Victoria’s longest extant timber bridge and is very unusual with its forty-eight spans, timber stringers (now replaced by steel joists) and timber deck.

Its original tall timber trestle piers are now mostly immersed below Lake Nagambie.

Its design was influenced by historic European craftsmanship.

It has an elbow bend and is a single-lane bridge with two overtaking bays midway.

Day Trips: A quintessential little country village

The Barwon Heads Bridge (Geelong region) has some, but not all similarities.

We also saw Chinaman’s Bridge.

It replaced an earlier timber bridge built in 1891 with a lift span to allow sawmill and recreational steamers to continue using the Goulburn River six times a week.

The second bridge was named after the Chinese market gardeners who occupied the area until 1916.

It is also a timber girder bridge with hand-hewn squared stringers strutted to the piers, corbels and deck. It too had a lift. Sadly it is now in a very poor state of disrepair.

These bridges are two of four built after 1890 of slightly differing types on the Goulburn River between Seymour and Murchison.

Day trips: An Indigenous education

They are linked to the story of irrigation in Australia and its father Alfred Deakin by the building of Goulburn Weir, which created Lake Nagambie.

Our day trip was especially to show our engineer friends Kirwans Bridge and to have lunch at the little “Eighteen Sixty” restaurant in Nagambie.

Many friends know the chef, her lemon tart is famous.

We earned our lunch because we saw and learnt more than we bargained for.

Both sides of the Goulburn River make travelling over Kirwans Bridge rewarding.

Day Trips: Artistic adventures

On the Nagambie side beside the river, is Tahbilk Winery that has its origins from the 1860s.

Five generations of the Purbrick family have continuously developed and improved the winery since 1925.

The family considers environmental responsibility very important.

While its restaurant is not old and not on the river, it is surrounded by wetlands.

All the other buildings including cellar door are from the earliest time.

The setting and buildings themselves are worthy of a visit by car or boat.

Day Trips: Myrtleford via Milawa

Nearby is Mitchelton Winery, also on the river.

Grapes were first planted in 1969 and its iconic cellar door and tower, designed by Robin Boyd CBE, was opened in 1974.

Today the view from the top of the tower is stunning.

There are now a collection of buildings including a hotel on the riverfront.

For some, seeing the magnificent thoroughbred properties is enough enticement to visit Nagambie.

There is a bronze statue of Black Caviar in the park beside Lake Nagambie.

The adjacent Information Centre has a Black Caviar Trail brochure that will help you identify Gilgai Farm where she was born.

Day Trips: Back to Tatong

On the other side of Kirwans Bridge there are the old goldmining towns of Whroo, Baillieston and Rushworth and one of my favourites, Murchison.

I have written before about Murchison and Rushworth but not Whroo (pronounced ‘roo’).

Whroo was home to the Ngurai-illam-wurrung Aboriginal people, but after explorer Major Mitchell travelled through central Victoria (then NSW) in 1836 and wrote his favourable reports about the rivers and good country, settlers soon followed.

By 1845 the traditional lifestyle and food resources of the indigenous people had been destroyed.

Day Trips: One thing leads to another

In 1853 goldminers arrived in the Rushworth State Forest area.

There was surface and alluvial gold, open-cut mines and quartz reef mining at Balaclava Hill, but by 1857 the boom was over and 500 people stayed in Whroo.

It was not until we were back in Nagambie for our late lunch that we saw two things.

One, three large white marquees on the medium strip and secondly while investigating why they were there, discovering the large stone cairn commemorating Major Mitchell crossing the Goulburn River at (now) Nagambie in 1836.

The penny dropped, Mitchell . . . Mitchelton.

Day Trips: Off to Yarrawonga

Major Mitchell had travelled from the Broken River in Benalla to the Goulburn River at Nagambie on his journey ultimately to Portland.

It is believed he used the routes travelled by the indigenous peoples.

The white marquees are examples of council co-operation and commercial lateral thinking.

Last weekend, post-COVID, more than 100 people were turned away from restaurants, so these will accommodate the overflow and stay in place until after Easter.

Day Trips: Mansfield and more

It proves the popularity of Nagambie for campers, fisher-people, rowers, locals and day trippers.

What fun dining in the middle of the street, but you will need to book.

Zephyrz, Royal Mail Hotel and Nagambie Brewery each have a marquee for dinners Friday, Saturday and Sunday nights only.

We had another great day trip.

– Suzie Pearce

If you would like to send a letter to the editor on this, or any subject, click this link