Looking Back history feature: The North Gong Pub

By MICK ROBERTS.

Royal Victoria Hotel. Inset: Theodore Bode

ALTHOUGH the North Wollongong Hotel has changed considerably in appearance since German immigrant, Theodore Bode opened his little wayside inn on the site in 1878, its principal purpose of providing hospitality remains unchanged. Now a favourite haunt of university students, the North Gong – as it’s affectionately known – originally opened as the Royal Victoria Hotel and was a popular watering hole for local farmers, travelers and tourists visiting the unspoiled scenic splendour of the Illawarra.

The pub’s history revolves chiefly around Australia’s favourite pastimes of gambling and sport. Even the pub’s founding was based on a gamble when Theodore Bode took a punt and traveled to the Victorian goldfields to seek his fortune.

Born in Hanover, Germany in 1838, Carl Theodore Bode arrived in Melbourne in 1854 during the height of gold fever, and soon found his way to Ballarat where…