The Purple Penguin

We headed for Beechworth and the breweries. We had two on our list, Bridge Road Brewers and Billsons. The website was not completely clear about the tours, so we aimed to be at Bridge Road by 11am. We were in Beechworth early, through heavy smoke, and stopped at Tourist Information for a map and to find out where the best place to park was. We also asked about the fires and were assured they were still quite a way away, just it was very smoky! Turns out you can park along the side streets all day for free. So that was good. We also discovered this was Ned Kelly country.

We headed for Bridge Road Brewers and got there a bit past 11am and asked if we could have a tour. A very nice man came out and introduced himself as Donald and said if we’d wait a minute he’d give us a tour. So it was just the two being shown around by the CEO. It’s a lovely little brewery in an old coaching station. They do small batch beers that Joe says is very good (yes, Kathleen tried a couple and, if she had to, could drink a bit. But the scrumpy was very good). Definitely recommend going and the $15 tour gets you a flight of four beers. They use Ned Kelly in their branding as well!

Then we headed for the old part of town, which included the telegraph office, the Courthouse, the Town Hall, the Ned Kelly Vault Museum, the Burke Museum and a couple of other buildings, one included information on the forestry service and firefighting which was quite relevant! When we went to the Courthouse they were getting ready to do a talk about Ned Kelly (it’s usually a walk, but they cancel the walks when the temperature gets to 38C and do one as a talk in the Courthouse). So we got to hear about Kelly and a brief reenactment of his trial in Beechworth (the trial started there and was then moved to Melbourne). Everything gets linked to Ned Kelly!

After the museums and looking around the older part of town we headed for Billsons. We got there a bit later so they were getting ready to close. I knew they didn’t do tours but had hoped to get some tasting; however, they had a big group at the tasting bar and didn’t seem to see us. So we carried on and can’t tell you if Billsons is any good!

We got some tips of things to see around Beechworth from the woman at the Courthouse, so we went to see them as we were leaving. First we drove around Mayday Hill, where there is an old asylum (now closed but they do Asylum Ghost Tours) and Benevolent Asylum, where they took in homeless people and orphans. It was an odd drive, but interesting. Then we headed out to the cemetery and then over to Gorge Road.

Everything says Gorge Road is one way and a very beautiful drive, what they don’t say is there are sheer drops as you go up and down the gorge! You go on one side of the gorge, gradually working your way down to the bridge over the stream, then back up the other side. It’s very narrow, twisty, and rocky but paved. Most of the way paved, there is a section that is gravel which has a huge hump in the centre which our little car almost didn’t manage! But it is a very beautiful drive and worth doing.

The area was so smokey we woke up this morning to a smokey room and headaches, so tonight we’ve put a towel across the bottom of the door to our motel room and put on the a/c.