St Bernard hospice and neighbours

Going back for a moment, I referred at the start of all this to the ‘usual’ route down the Tambo Valley from Omeo. In the days of the hospice, up into the years of the Great War, people from Omeo – from the huge hills and valley around Hotham and St Bernard and Blowhard and the Gibbo and so on, could get out to Melbourne on the train by going down to Omeo or down to Wangaratta.

There simply was no up. It was all downward from those hills. The people of Omeo really had only the one choice during winter. It would cost them five pounds and 19 shillings to get the coach down to Bairnsdale, on to Sale, and then the train to Melbourne. It was a long and expensive journey.

In summer they could take the coach up over Hotham and down to Myrtleford where they could catch a train from 1883 to Wangaratta, and then the train to Melbourne, for three pounds and 12 shillings. The two pounds and 12 shillings difference was a big one in days when a pound a week was a common wage.

The line was extended to Bright in 1890. It is no longer there, of course, and unfortunately. Nor is the hospice itself there any more.

It came to a sad end in 1939 when the terrible Black Friday bushfires of late January swept the area. Two other accommodation houses built long after the hospice were destroyed at the same time. The Hotham Heights Chalet and the Feathertop Bungalow were also razed, though apparently without loss of life. The Hospice had been redeveloped before the fires, in 1925, but was still not a major attraction. Its time had passed.

The Hotham Heights chalet began in 1924 as a house that was the base for the Country Roads Board men upgrading the road. In winter it was deserted and Bill Spargo, head of the road gang asked if he could run it a guest house during the winter. In 1925 the Feathertop Bungalow had been opened and when the Victorian Railways muscled in on the growing tourist trade Mt Buffalo was advertised for beginning skiers, Mt Feathertop for Intermediates (though it looks pretty daunting to me) and Hotham was for experienced skiers.

Spargo’s idea was such a good one that the

CRB removed him in 1932 and put in a manager. It was also taken over by the VR and in 1939 the railways were able to have it rebuilt in time for tourists in the winter. It was burned to the ground in January, in a remote spot, and reopened about five months later. There were plans to make it even bigger but the war put a stop to that. Th chalet was reserved during most of the war as haven for servicemen on leave.

At this time VR had a plan to make Feathertop larger and rebuild the St Bernard Hospice, but the war stopped many things, including the railway’ dominance of the tourist traffic.

The Feathertop Bungalow, built by a syndicate led by Gordon Langridge in 1925, had been taken over by the VR in 1928 when it became obvious the builders were not going to get a freehold title – because of railways opposition. Like others in the area the Bungalow was secured only by a Miner’s Right and the builders thought they would soon get a title. They were wrong. The Feathertop Bungalow was built on Mt Feathertop, linked to Mt Hotham by frighteningly narrow and sheer-sided ridge.

In 1925 the syndicate had plans for huge expansion involving international tourists, and Hilda Samsing as hired as a manager. She was said to be the only women who went ashore at Gallipoli. She was an army nurse at the time, and she was a lady to be reckoned with. She’d taken over the run-down Mt Buffalo Chalet and made a huge success of it – before the Victorian Railways took it over and left her without a job. The Railways seemed determined to own everything on those heights.

Though this story is meant to be about the St Bernard Hospice the Feathertop Bungalow has a fascination of its own. It was opened with very big intentions. It was opened on 13 July 1925, and there was even a fireworks display. Imagine fireworks high on a rugged, remote peak, deep in a vast snowfield. It must have been a spectacular sight, and it was start of what was to be a great dream come true, until the Victorian Railways stepped in and took it all away from those who’d started it.

The original builders were apparently paid less than 10 per cent of their investment in compensation. The ‘dream’ had included a three hundred bed chalet and a ski jump built to international competition standards. Right at the start, the syndicate had bought 50 pairs of proper Norwegian skis, at a time when our own skis were often quite primitive.

Back again to the intended theme of this story, the Mount St Bernard Hospice.

The first Mount Saint Bernard Hospice was the one on the top of the St Bernard Pass, a short way into Switzerland from the Italian border. Yes, it was the home of the St Bernard dogs and yes, those dogs did rescue travellers lost in the snow, but not for more than a century. I’ll say more about that next week.

It was named for St Bernard de Montjeux, sometimes called St Bernard of Menthon, who started the hospice in 962, to provide a refuge from the snows – and from bandits. The pass was part of a pilgrimage route and the safe haven he provided became renowned. It is still there, though the vast bulk of the St Bernard Pass traffic passes through the new tunnel under the ranges.

If Mount Saint Bernard was named before the hostel it seems logical that the hostel was named after it, but the opposite might also be true.

For what it is worth, St Bernard died in 1008, his feast day is May 28 and he is the patron saint of skiers and mountains climbers, the latter, particularly, needing all the saintly protection they can muster.

Just as the original offered safety and sanctuary, there must have been a good many people who felt a powerful relief when they saw the faint glow of lights through the snow flurries of a High Country winter. Our own Mount Saint Bernard Hospice was a very genuine refuge.