Bens Crossing Bridge

Bens crossing bridge is being replaced. Some people will be pleased with this change of traffic conditions, as the old bridge was always looked upon as being technology and materials of the past and looked in disrepair. Because of the way and materials from which it was constructed and appeared, it made people pause before crossing it. The bridge planking was sometimes damaged or broken. A sign suggested that cyclists, dismount and walk their treddly's over the bridge rather than ride them where the wheels of their mode of transport might get jammed between the planks of the bridge and send the rider flying over the handlebars.

There have been band aid repairs to the bridge forever, and as time wore on and took its toll it was narrowed down, to what particular purpose? The reason unknown to this scribe. Possibly protecting people from driving through it's old railings into the abyss.

Now the bridge will be pulled down and another constructed in it's place. One of these very modern concrete bridges one assumes? Changing the bridge, and thereby the road conditions that now apply, might appear like a good thing at face value. One assumes it will allow traffic to flow both ways over the bridge and circumvent vehicles slowing down to check if there is traffic coming from the other side to which one may have to give way. It will allow more speed and less attention to be paid to the road in that area at least, and probably cut a couple of seconds of the trip along the distance of the Cassilis road. More time even if another vehicle was on the bridge when trying to cross it.

So is that an improvement? Allowing greater speed to be maintained and removing the caution that was once part of using that bridge, reducing the need for the visitor to be mindful and read the signs and be cautious coming toward and leaving the narrower bridge?

At face value it looks like an improvement, but it's something to ponder just the same.

So who was Ben that this crossing was named after him? Is that lost in the detritus of time and human memory? Does anyone have an idea about who Ben could be? We could conjecture, think it was a person who lived on the Cassilis side of the creek [Gray's Creek] and had to cross it often? Gray's Creek only brings up another question. Trying to discover who was Gray?

Were these the first people who settled in that Cassilis/Tongio area, along the creek which Ben had to cross often enough for people to name the crossing after him and this activity?

This http://archiver.rootsweb.ancestry.com/th/read/AUS-VIC-GIPPSLAND/1999-06/0928416879 This history gives us a bit more of an insight into what was there at that location, but not who Ben was and why the crossing was named after him. We assume him because it appears to be a mans name?

Here is a bit more general information that might be useful http://www.victorianplaces.com.au/cassilis-and-tongio-west.

Mysteries remain for the moment.