We planned to see the Bilbies housed in a room at the station, so we walked across the road at 9:02am, but the Information Centre staff told us the door was closed right on 9am and we would have to come back at 3pm. Since we had been booked into the Hotel Corones Tour at that time we missed out on the Bilbies.
Malcolm braved the morning heat and walked the 3km track next to the Warrego River. There were pied butcher birds, ringneck parrots, eastern rosellas and a Pacific heron among others. Lyn took shelter in the library and eavesdropped on the conversations between the locals and the librarian.
After morning tea we spent an hour at the town museum, which contained an amazing collection of stuff from the nineteenth and early twentieth century. Amy Johnson passed through here as a refuelling town and left this interesting plate for the town:
At 2pm we joined the two hour tour of the Hotel Corones, led by Rachel who has been the Manager of the Info. Centre but is on long service leave. She talked almost nonstop till 3:40pm and amused us with dozens of funny anecdotes about Harry Corones, the Greek migrant who built and ran the hotel in the first decades of the 1900s. He became the most influential citizen in the town and was awarded an MBE. Amy Johnson stayed in the hotel (best room) and requested a champagne bath. Harry agreed and poured 23 magnums into this bath.
The next day Harry refilled all the bottles from the bath and sold them off as memorabilia at a profit. No one ever was able to explain why he sold 24 bottles, not 23.
The hotel was very popular with shearers and drovers and it boasted the longest bar in Australia. Lyn and Malcolm had a soft drink.
The tour finished with scones and tea in the fancy dining room through the double doors on the left.
We boarded the Westlander at 5:45pm and at 6:15 it took off for the 16 hour crawl back to Brisbane. We scored noisy passengers behind us again but we managed to fall asleep sitting up for an hour or two. Once again there were only about 16 passengers and Car B as empty. However the toilets in Car A were full because the train had been stopping at Toowoomba because of track work and had not been back to Brisbane for a service for some time. We needed to walk to the back of Car B to use the toilets there and hope they did not fill up before we got off. We were able to look behind the train when it got light in the morning from the back of Car B.
Malcolm braved the morning heat and walked the 3km track next to the Warrego River. There were pied butcher birds, ringneck parrots, eastern rosellas and a Pacific heron among others. Lyn took shelter in the library and eavesdropped on the conversations between the locals and the librarian.
After morning tea we spent an hour at the town museum, which contained an amazing collection of stuff from the nineteenth and early twentieth century. Amy Johnson passed through here as a refuelling town and left this interesting plate for the town:
At 2pm we joined the two hour tour of the Hotel Corones, led by Rachel who has been the Manager of the Info. Centre but is on long service leave. She talked almost nonstop till 3:40pm and amused us with dozens of funny anecdotes about Harry Corones, the Greek migrant who built and ran the hotel in the first decades of the 1900s. He became the most influential citizen in the town and was awarded an MBE. Amy Johnson stayed in the hotel (best room) and requested a champagne bath. Harry agreed and poured 23 magnums into this bath.
The next day Harry refilled all the bottles from the bath and sold them off as memorabilia at a profit. No one ever was able to explain why he sold 24 bottles, not 23.
The hotel was very popular with shearers and drovers and it boasted the longest bar in Australia. Lyn and Malcolm had a soft drink.
The tour finished with scones and tea in the fancy dining room through the double doors on the left.
We boarded the Westlander at 5:45pm and at 6:15 it took off for the 16 hour crawl back to Brisbane. We scored noisy passengers behind us again but we managed to fall asleep sitting up for an hour or two. Once again there were only about 16 passengers and Car B as empty. However the toilets in Car A were full because the train had been stopping at Toowoomba because of track work and had not been back to Brisbane for a service for some time. We needed to walk to the back of Car B to use the toilets there and hope they did not fill up before we got off. We were able to look behind the train when it got light in the morning from the back of Car B.
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