In the trail of a bushranger hero

Ben Hall's body was paraded through Forbes before being buried.

Ned Kelly gets most of the publicity but Ben Hall's gang of bushrangers was much more successful. And he's fast becoming just as big a tourist attraction.

In just three years Hall was involved in more than 600 robberies - including the biggest raid in colonial Australian history, netting close to $2.5 million in gold and cash (at today's values) - held up several towns and captured a dozen police.

Those exploits meant he was eagerly pursued by the authorities at the time and today he is even more keenly sought after by New South Wales towns wanting to use him as a tourist attraction.

Hall's bloody trail is easy to follow because the towns he stuck up have murals, monuments and motels in his memory.

And, since Australia is so good at preserving its history, it is a trail well worth following, full of beautiful old buildings, delightful museums and lovely parks, interesting landscapes, fine restaurants and promising wine areas.

It's not certain where the trail should start, because Hall's place of birth is a matter of dispute. Was it Breeza Station in the Namoi Valley or Doona Station in the Hunter Valley? Both are in New South Wales.

Breeza Station is near the town of Gunnedah, the self-proclaimed Koala Capital of Australia, which also boasts the largest gun collection in northern NSW and the largest collection of vintage tractors in Australia.

Out at Breeza itself elderly locals claim to remember the old shepherd's hut where Hall was born and an artist has painted a mural showing the young bushranger's life.

Doona Station was near the historic convict settlement of Maitland, which doesn't seem to have done much to mark any connection with Hall, although it does offer the chance to sleep in its old gaol. But in nearby Murrurundi, where Hall's parents bought land, they have a Ben Hall memorial toilet and a large mural commemorating the family.

In the circumstances it's probably best to forget where Hall was born, forego the chance to use his toilet, and concentrate on the vast swathe of central NSW where he carried out the exploits which made him a legend.

This probably begins at Grenfell, a lovely old town in the Lachlan Valley, close to where Hall moved with his bride Bridget about 1860 to take up cattle farming, and surrounded by the rugged Weddin Mountains with their myriad hiding places.

Like many settlements in the area, Grenfell was founded on gold and it was gold the bushrangers were mainly after.

Wander through the town today and you can still see the old mines, stamper batteries, miners' cottages, hotels and stores that Hall would have known.

Exactly what prompted Hall to take up bushranging remains a subject for dispute.

One version is that from early on he hung around with criminals and inevitably started joining them in their activities.

Hall's own more colourful version, in a letter to the authorities you can read about in the charming Grenfell Museum, was, "I'm not a criminal. I've been driven to this life."

By that account, his life of crime started after he was twice wrongly accused of being involved in holdups and held in gaol for several weeks.

"While I was away," he said in his letter, "me wife ran away with a policeman, well, a cove who used to [be] in the police force ... When I came home I found my house burned down and cattle perished of thirst left locked in the yards ... Can you wonder I'm wild?

"By Gawd, it's your mob that have driven me to it, and I tell you straight, you'll never take me alive."

Add that story to the fact that he was good-looking, well-dressed, courteous to women victims and never robbed his neighbours, and it's easy to see why he became a legend.

Feelings about him run high in Grenfell because, says local historian Bruce Robinson, "Six out of the eight gang members lived round here and their families are still in the district." Bruce himself has a link with the gang, because his mother, a nurse, laid out Hall's mate, Dan Charters.

"Because of that you can still get into a pretty good argument about Ben Hall," he says. "Just the other day a lady came in to the museum and said, 'You're are a bit hard on Ben. He was never a bad man. He never killed anyone.'

"My reply was, 'Well, he fired a lot of bullets at a lot of people, and if he didn't kill anyone it was only because he was a bad shot. And his gang certainly killed a few people'."

Whatever the truth behind the legend, Grenfell is happy to cash in. Its museum features Hall and he figures strongly in the wonderful historical tours Bruce runs as a fundraising exercise.

Not far out of town is the Ben Hall Camping Ground where the big attraction is a cave once used by the bushranger.

You can't actually go in these days, nervous authorities having erected a wire barricade, but it has quite a large entrance and then a narrow passage you crawl through to reach a secret inner cave.

From there the trail should probably move to the attractive bushclad village of Eugowra, where the gang carried out the heist that sent shockwaves around Australia.

On June 14, 1862, eight men ambushed the Forbes-to-Sydney gold escort and got away with 2719 ounces of gold and 3700 in cash.

Eugowra advertises this crime with a glamorous mural of the gang in action, a Bushranger Restaurant and even a Lady Bushranger shop selling "coffee and gifts".

Just out of town on the road to Orange is Escort Rock, where an attractive picnic ground and an information plaque mark the spot where the robbery occurred.

The holdup is also commemorated by the Bushranger Bounty Shiraz, produced at nearby Cowra by descendants of John Fagan, the driver of the stagecoach, who supposedly got a bullet through his hat. The label notes, tongue-in-cheek, that "half the gold was never recovered" and "four years later the Fagan family purchased Mulyan".

Next stop on the bushranger trail is Canowindra, another charming rural town, where the Hall gang carried out one of the stunts that embellished the legend of Hall as "the poor people's champion".

They took control of Canowindra's Robinson Hotel for three days, gathered all the townsfolk at gunpoint and turned on a party with food, drink and entertainment.

Afterwards, the gang supposedly paid the hotelier for the spree and gave the compulsory guests "expenses money".

Canowindra certainly promotes its bushranger past but these days is rather prouder of its title as the Balloon Capital of Australia.

Another notable Hall target was Carcoar, once a major centre and still notable for its magnificent old buildings, including the Commercial Bank where the gang carried out the first bank robbery in Australian history.

The bushrangers also robbed a mail coach nearby and, when they were chased by three police officers from Carcoar, captured the luckless pursuers and took their uniforms, which they then used in their robberies.

Most of the towns in the region were hit at some time by the Hall gang as they constantly stuck up mail coaches and gold shipments as well as - though you won't hear this from his apologists - stealing from ordinary people, nicking church poor-boxes and even taking children's moneyboxes.

All of this made a mockery of the law and in, 1865, after the killing of a police sergeant during one robbery, Hall and two colleagues became the first bushrangers to be officially declared "outlaws" - there was a $2000 reward for information leading to their capture and they could be shot on sight.

Our bushranger's trail ends at Forbes, another marvellously preserved old town, which is probably the centre of the Hall industry today.

A much-reviled friend of Hall, tempted by the reward, told the police the bushranger would be visiting his place. They laid an ambush and launched a dawn attack.

Shot and badly wounded, Hall supposedly called out to police black tracker Billy Dargin, a former friend, "Shoot me dead, Billy. Don't let the traps take me alive."

The police obliged. There were more than 30 bullets in Hall's body.

The spot where he died, on the banks of Goobang Creek about 18km outside the town, is now a park, Ben Hall Place, reached by way of Ben Hall's Rd and under the shadow of Ben Hall's Lookout.

After the shooting, Hall's body was paraded through the town and two days later buried in the Forbes cemetery. He was just 27.

Initially, the grave was unmarked but, as the legend grew and ballads were written about this "ranger bold", locals tended the grave, a picket fence was built around it and in 1920 a gravestone was erected.

If you visit the cemetery today you'll find a signpost pointing - in a bizarre piece of juxtaposition - to the graves of Ben Hall, Ned Kelly's sister and Captain James Cook's grandniece.

Near Hall's grave, which had fresh flowers when I visited, a plaque records the fact that unmarked graves nearby hold the bodies of other gang members shot by police and, the final irony, that of Billy Dargin, the man who tracked him down.

Back in town Hall's memory is preserved through the Ben Hall Motor Inn, which stands right next door to the museum with its display of bushranger history, and a spooky Bushrangers Hall of Fame in the cellar under the old Albion Hotel.

You can't help wondering what the honest folk who built the town of Forbes would think to see their graves untended and their memories forgotten while a bushranger holds pride of place.

* Jim Eagles followed the trail of Ben Hall as guest of Tourism New South Wales and Air New Zealand.

Location

Ben Hall country lies about four hours by road from Sydney or two hours from Canberra.

Accommodation

A great base for exploring the area is the historic Clarendon Farmstay, run by former Wallaby captain John Thornett and his wife, Viv, at Broula, just outside Cowra. You can contact them by following the email link below or (0061) 2 6342 9333.

Grenfell

You'll find information about Grenfell. The Grenfell Tourist Information Centre is at (0061) 2 6343 1612.

The Grenfell Museum, from which Bruce Robinson runs tours, is at (0061) 2 6343 1930

Eugowra

Probably the best source for information about Eugowra can be found by clicking the link below.

The town's tourist information centre is at (0061) 2 6859 2229.

Cowra

You can buy Bushranger Bounty Shiraz at the wonderful Quarry Restaurant and Cellars in Cowra. It's on the web at www.cowraregionwines.com.

Cowra Visitor Information Centre is at (0061) 2 6342 4333


Forbes 

Contact the visitor information centre on (0061) 2 6852 4155

Further information 

Contact New South Wales visitor information centre at 0800 100 006.