A Planes, Trains and Automobiles weekend

Off the rails and in Quandary 

Let’s start with automobiles and trains before moving onto planes!

We were booked in to attend our Rotary District’s weekend conference in Temora NSW and I had to find us somewhere to stay. Given we haven’t travelled much apart from seeing and staying with family, I took this job very seriously!

And I certainly hit the jackpot with Country Carriage Bed &Breakfast in Quandary.

We are very involved, as you may know, in our local Tumbarumba to Rosewood Rail Trail and Grant was doing a presentation at the conference about our club’s project of riding seniors along our rail trail in our trioBikes, so when I saw the converted railway carriage as possible accommodation I jumped at the chance. It was a 2 night minimum stay complete with breakfast hamper and friendly hosts.

No matter that it was 22km from where the conference was being held, in the middle of nowhere, at a place we’d never heard of called Quandary – we’d already driven over 200km to get there! (That’s the automobile and train references done).

I did ask our hosts why the town was called Quandary but there didn’t seem to be a reason – I liked to think back in the day they were in a bit of a quandary about what to call it and the name stuck.

Apparently there were families living on the Quandary Station (not railway station) in 1870s but the township of Quandary wasn’t established until 1910. According to the history board it was a busy centre in its early years but post WW2 it started to decline. The rail siding and yards contained a station building, weigh bridge, open bagged grain sheds and silos and trains were fairly frequent conveying mail, passengers and freight. Grain was the main industry with a Farmers and Graziers Co-op operating, a grain agency, post office and telephone exchange. There is nothing left to see of Quandary township today apart from the railway sign above which has been incorporated into the present homestead.

The City Circle carriage

According to our lovely hosts Rita and Lyndsay Bromfield at their property called Hazeldean, their son had bought a billiard table back in 2008 and they had nowhere to put it (it stood in their lounge room for 9 months). Can you just imagine??

They already had one carriage on their property ‘The Overlander’, which they had setup as a Bed & Breakfast for a family, and was proving popular, so they looked into buying a second carriage, The City Circle. Also known to many as a Red Rattler.

It had entered service on 31/3/1959 and was later withdrawn and condemned before being used as a computer classroom by a school in Grafton. Rita and Lyndsay bought it, had it transported to their property and set it up as another Bed & Breakfast for a couple, doing most of the work themselves, apart from the electrical and plumbing jobs. We had an interesting tour of their pioneer collection by Lyndsay and both hosts were warm and welcoming.

Inside the carriage

The City Circle was perfect for us, it was quirky, cosy, comfy and full of character.

It had everything, and more, that we required for our stay. We appreciated the information booklet supplied by the hosts, telling us the history of the carriages and their family history, as they are proud to be 5th generation farmers on their property. I loved the quirky touches like the drivers wheel in the kitchen, the billiard table (Grant had a play), the train system map, the use of furniture, the huge comfortable bed and the environmentally friendly toilet system in place.

It was even nice not to have much phone service while we were there! Peace and quiet in a in a beautiful setting.

Views from the carriage

This really was an amazing place to stay!!

Planes

Temora is well known for its Aviation Museum and the conference committee had organised a dinner in one of the hangers, surrounded by old planes, all of which are still operational. It made for a fun evening, especially as they also arranged for a fly-by of a Wirraway trainer plane complete with amazing sunset!

We all thoroughly enjoyed this addition to our weekend with the pilot addressing us and giving us a great run down of the museum.

So there you have it – Planes, Trains and Automobiles – all in one amazing weekend. And yes the Rotary conference was also good fun!

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Changes to Wordless Wednesday

I have been doing Wordless Wednesday posts (or attempting to do them) for quite some time now, but I like words too much. So for this year I’ve decided to change it up a bit, post only when I have something to say on a Wednesday and use the Wake up and be Amazing, it’s Wednesday as my inspiration. It makes me smile and hopefully you too 🙂

I must say it’s great to write a travel post after all this time too – hopefully it will the first of many!

You’re amazing, just like this sunset – and don’t you forget it!

Deb 🙂

Note: Despite the title of my post I’ve never watched this movie! I’d been sending photos of our weekend away to my daughters and one of them replied ‘You’re really having a ‘planes, trains and automobiles’ theme to your weekend aren’t you? ‘ and so the title of my post was decided 🙂

All my Wordless Wednesday posts can be found by clicking this link

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