Spurred by yesterday’s bike-borne expedition into the unknown, I squandered a bit of time last night looking for further local loops to explore on two wheels. Modern internet-based social platforms make this kind of thing so easy. For example, I have recently joined a service called Strava, which enables weekend warriors and endurance sports weirdos to upload their performances to share with like-minded folk.
There’s much more to it than that, but what intrigues me is that it plots your route on a map – when your GPS doesn’t crap out, that is – which you can then zoom in on and seek out all the other likely routes in the area. Thus it was that last night I became fascinated with a road I’d missed twice while panting wearily into town on the Bombay Road.
What a find it was too – purely because of its name: Bopping’s Crossing Road. I mean, come on – it’s a wonderful name for a road and for a cycling route. ‘Bopping’s Crossing Loop’ – it rolls off the tongue rather nicely, don’t you think?
And it was the name that came to dominate proceedings as I delved into the darkest recesses of the internet to trace its origins. And in true rabbit-hole style, every link led to several more and the quest ballooned out of control. Those ancestry websites have a lot to answer for (especially if you don’t want to pay for the information they hoard).
That said, it’s pretty clear that the Boppings were a big family hereabouts from way back. From what I can work out, an Emanuel Bopping was born in Braidwood in 1839 (or in Germany – sources differ), and he had six siblings – so there’s the basis of a pretty decent dynasty right there. There’s quite a lot of info around about Peter Bopping, 1868- 1957; I can’t be sure, but he may be son or nephew of Emanuel – and Peter had six children too.
Out of respect from Boppings still living, I won’t delve into this much more, but Peter’s appearances in the historical record shine a little light on Bopping’s Crossing. The first is from what looks to be a charming book, Can My Pony Come Too? by Rosemary Esmonde Peterswald, whose parents came out to Australia from Ireland in the 1950s, having fallen on hard times. I wouldn’t want to dent sales by offering up too many spoilers, but this bit caught my eye:
On many occasions we mustered sheep for the next-door neighbour, Peter Bopping . . . a weather-beaten fellow who usually had a roll your own hanging from his sunburnt lips and wore a battered hat, with corks dangling from the rim. In his hand he carried a shabby leather whip, which he constantly flicked at the sheep.
So those sheep that fled from my slow-pedalling apparition yesterday may well have descended from Bopping’s herds. There’s lots more about Mr. Bopping in this book – he sounds like a wry and witty fellow with a line in ‘tall yarns,’ which you have to admit is a very attractive trait.
One clue that may explain the name of Bopping’s Crossing Road is an article in the Braidwood Review of 15 June 1954, which reports that Mr. Bopping pleaded guilty in court to the charge of driving livestock without a licence.
Mr. Stock Inspector C. D. Gee told the Court that on the 4th December, 1953, on the Braidwood-Araluen road, seven miles from Braidwood, he came across defendant, driving eight head of cattle. Bopping . . . said he had come from the saleyards at Braidwood and was taking the cattle to his property at Reidsdale, about 10 miles. He said he had no permit; he had had an opportunity of getting the cattle away from another mob at the yards and did not wait to get a permit.
He was duly fined £3, plus court costs of 12 shillings, as well as £3 and 3 shillings’ “professional costs” – lawyers’ fees, perhaps. The court was told that Mr. Bopping was “of good character with no previous conviction” – and I reckon his motive, “getting the cattle away from another mob,” is a laudable one.
Anyway, the point of all this is that between the old Braidwood showground and the Araluen Road, there lies Gillamatong Creek, which would need to be negotiated if you were driving stock to or from Reidsdale. And from what I can glean from diligent googling, the Boppings were successful raisers of sheep and cattle, requiring regular crossing of the creek to display and trade their beasts at the showground.
Long story short (well, not very short), this morning dawned even sunnier, brighter and more gorgeous than yesterday. But there was a snag: we had an urgent letter bound for Singapore which the Braidwood Post Office couldn’t handle — due, they claimed, to COVID-19. It had to be rushed to Bungendore Post Office post-haste.
But you know, adapting to events as they arise is an essential life skill, so it seemed only natural to take the old German sports car via Bopping’s Crossing Road to Glenmore Road and Station Street (where there is no station), there to meet the King’s Highway – a bit of a detour, but a neat way to kill those two proverbial birds with the axiomatic single stone and scout my new route on the way.
While this was a neat compromise, it didn’t survive longer than it took to turn into Bopping’s Crossing Road, because within a few metres it became clear that the eponymous crossing was definitely of the fair-weather variety: technically, it’s a ford, and given recent precipitation, a deep and muddy one. There was no choice but to reverse and re-join the King’s Highway via a firmly tarmac-ed route.
I’m planning to go into more detail about the Scots influence on this region, but for now let’s remind ourselves of bard and sage Rabbie Burns who noted, “The best-laid schemes o’ mice an’ men / Gang aft agley [awry], / And leave us nought but grief an’ pain, / For promis’d joy.”
The promised joy of Bopping’s Crossing Road was not to be – not for car nor bike – but there was plenty of unanticipated enjoyment in finding out a little more about the Boppings, whose name lives on as part of the landscape – not a bad legacy, I’d say.