Nature sang alongside the railway track that wound through hills, crossing rivers and brooks, through tunnels, past stud farms, race tracks and towns big and small. Bowral is no village either. Dotted with a Town Hall, several churches and federation-themed houses built in the late 19th century, it has attracted several high-end restaurant businesses and entrepreneurs who are rebuilding the area around the small station into a mini business district.

To get in touch with Bradman though, you have to leave this glitz behind and find your way through the roads winding uphill. Fifteen minutes from the station, around St Jude Street, peeks at you a lush green stretch. You have reached Bradman Oval. Around this white-fence lined majestic centerpiece are Bradman's two homes.

On 52, Shepherd Street, stands the home Bradman where lived from 1911 to 1924. The second, on 20, Glebe Street, is the one Bradman helped his father build and stay between 1924 and 1928 before moving to Sydney. Overlooking the Bradman Oval, this residence prompts memories of CLR James’s house in Tuna Puna and the window from where his first memories of Caribbean cricket were formed. Standing on the gravel path, you could almost imagine Bradman walking out of his home, crossing the road and entering what once used to be Glebe Park.

Bordered by massive trees, grass banks, benches and a small picketed gate, the Oval is harked back in time. The small pavilion, opening out to a stand that holds around 50 spectators, effortlessly fuses with the ground without being obnoxious. So top-notch is the curation and maintenance that calling the Oval picture-perfect won’t be an exaggeration. Just behind it is the Bradman Museum and the International Cricket Hall of Fame. To a cricket nut, the halls explaining aboriginal roots of cricket in Australia, the Ashes and on the man himself, takes up most of the time. For the uninitiated, well-curated galleries and videos give a nice lowdown of the origin of cricket, its current standing and the significance of the Kerry Packer series.

A Bradman Walk takes you through this loop around the Oval, into museums, galleries and on to the roads to his houses. The most astonishing bit of memorabilia has been preserved in the halls detailing Bradman’s life and work. Black and white videos of Bradman’s interviews, a reel of “How I play cricket”—one of the documentaries on Bradman—are played in loop on thoughtfully sourced old TVs and screens. Another plays out the drama of Bodyline and how it affected Bradman’s Test average. From the walls, Jardine, Ranjitsinhji, WG Grace and Victor Trumper stare at you as the mind tries to take copious notes of Bradman’s correspondence, his first bat, Baggy Green and tattered gloves.

At 52, Shepherd Street, Bradman used to hit a golf ball off a cricket stump onto the base of the tank. The museum has a replica of that stump and golf ball as well. But the most stunning piece of work is the dressing room corner where a cricketer sits exhausted and disconsolate, face buried in his hands. You immediately remember how Steve Smith, visibly coy and in awe, took a photo sitting beside this man. Hats and overcoats are hung over hooks placed on the headboard if you sit on that bench, and from underneath you can see boots peeping out. Nothing can take you back in time better than this life-like reminiscence.

Bowral, however, isn’t just about the museum, memorabilia or the Bradman Walk. History speaks to you, silently narrating the story of a boy who made his first hundred as a 10-year-old here before sailing the seas and conquering different frontiers. The ground, his houses and the museum, the statue called Final Salute that was installed at the entrance pavilion after his death, everything reminds you this is Bradman land. He lives here, now and forever.