Accommodation Holbrook

Holbrook

Many Australian towns have been renamed during the course of time, but Holbrook is a bit unusual. The small Hume Highway town has been given four names since explorers Hume and Hovell came through in 1824 and called it Friday Mount in their journal.

By the time the first settlers dropped their swags in 1838, north of Albury was known as Ten Mile Creek. Twenty years on it became Germanton and so it remained until local hero Lt Norman Holbrook became the first submarine commander in World War I to receive the Victoria Cross and a gratifying nation renamed the town in his honour.

Holbrook joined the VC-holders when he negotiated a minefield off the Dardanelles to torpedo and sink a Turkish battleship in December, 1914.

A replica of his submarine is mounted in Holbrook, while the story of his bravery is recorded in the Woolpack Inn Museum.

Holbrook's association with submariners is reinforced by the presence of the real thing in the form of the 90-metre, HMAS Otway.