Runaway car hits pub and smashes a rural village’s renaissance

The Border Inn, for more than 170 years the social centre of the village of Apsley on the rich redgum plains of Victoria’s western Wimmera, was undergoing a major resurgence in popularity under its new owners.

But in the dark quiet of Monday morning, a car speared off the main road through the village, smashed through the pub’s art deco facade, continued through both the empty bar and the dining room and buried itself against the fireplace in the parlour.

The car that smashed into the Border Inn in Apsley, four months after the pub was bought by new owners.

Police said two people in the vehicle fled on foot. At the time of writing, they had not been found.

To the people of Apsley, it was more than a car crash.

It blew a hole in the burgeoning optimism of their little rural community.

The owners of the hotel, Shane Burke and Catherine Warke, declared themselves devastated. The couple left Melbourne to buy the Border Inn in July this year.

Nevertheless, they say they are determined to stay and re-build.

“The question is how long that might take, and how,” said Burke, surveying the damage. “It’s a great community, a great town and a great pub. We’re staying.”

Only the evening before the runaway car crashed through the hotel, the bar and the dining room were crammed with customers.

About a thousand people were drawn at the weekend to Apsley, population less than 300. It was market weekend.

The car ripped a hole through the pub’s art deco facade.

“Hundreds and hundreds of people were here, lots of stallholders, cars lined the streets, a lot of families out, people dining in the pub,” enthused Apsley district local Cynthia Watt.

The Border Inn is so important to the Apsley district that when it closed about a decade ago, residents of the area feared the town would die.

A consortium of 23 locals banded together within two years to buy the old place and get it running again.

The re-born pub became a venue for meetings of the cricket club, the golf club, the footy players, a book club and all the other community groups in search of a home. The beer garden became the spot for a parents’ group, complete with a cubby house.

The car ended up in the pub parlour.

A corner of the inn became a general store before a new store opened across the street about a year ago. You could have a beer and pick up milk, butter and breakfast cereal.

The community owners decided in 2020 their work was done, and they put the Border Inn up for sale. Offers were slow.

But early this year, Burke heard Watt talking about the pub for sale while he was driving his truck in Melbourne, listening to the radio.

He and Warke, who worked as a carer for seriously ill women, were looking for a change of pace and scenery.

Apsley and its pub proved perfect.

Until 5.30am on Monday.

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