Pub Crawl Long Weekend - July 2025

 Friday 4th July, 2025

This weekend is a special one, celebrating our wedding anniversary and doing it with our friends Tommy & Jill and making it a Long Weekend pub crawl 👍

Plan is The Bun Hotel, Bowenville Hotel for lunch, Pioneer Hotel Kulpi, Swinging Bridge free camp at Cooyar.

Will be meeting Tommy & Jill at Radnor Hotel in Blackbutt for lunch today and we're off to a really good start leaving by 10.30am!!  Bea-u-tiful weather today as well, makes you glad to be alive and enjoying life.

Arriving around 12pm in Blackbutt, finding a park in the side street only to be informed by Tommy and another couple also caught out, that there is no power in Blackbutt so the pub is closed 😮 Ooh come on, really!! My always supportive husband's comment "well you're off to a flying start with this pub crawl weekend, aren't you", thanks Dear 😖

We won't let that stop us will we, onwards to Yarraman there's a pub there!  Found a park and we went in the back door through the beer garden, grabbed Tommy and Jill and guess what, yep Yarraman hasn't had power all day, BUT they have just got it back on BUT the Chef wasn't there yet so no food HOWEVER we can have a beer and wine, so let's at least get this party started with a drink at a pub then 👍

We popped over the road to the Pink Flamingo Cafe and had some toasted sandwiches for lunch and to stop one of us getting the hangries.  Still a bea-u-tiful day, so onwards to Kaimkillenbum for our overnight stop at The Bun Hotel.

Arriving around 3pm, we booked in at the bar for our camping sites next to the pub, but first things first, we had a drink of course or two 😉 Now Tommy is an Irishman and usually only drinks Guinness when he goes back to Ireland, Craig explained to Tommy that they installed Guinness on tap when they renovated the bar at The Bun and it's really worth giving it a try, and so he did and our Irishman was pleasantly surprised and happy with his Guinness.

Off to set up camp, couple of bevvies at camp then back to the pub for dinner and a few more drinks and chatting with the locals.  

Now after dinner I may have taken Barney back to the van to give him dinner and then pop into bed with him, it was not that early, so I said to Craig you stay at the pub with Tommy and Jill.  He did as he was told, they moved inside next to the fireplace in the dining room and watched the NRL and continued to partake in the glasses of Guinness.  Jill had the sense to go home earlier then the men and let's just say they were both a bit dusty the next morning.

Saturday 5th July, 2025

So, it was a slow morning for a couple of us - guess who 🤔  A coffee first

before packing up camp and making our way to the small town of Bell just up the road from Kaimkillenbum.  After speaking to some Bell locals last night (apparently everyone from Bell comes to The Bun Hotel, because they don't like the Bell Hotel) they reckon their Butcher is good and since Maclagen Butchers weren't open when we came through, Craig was keen.  We also noticed there was a Cafe in Bell and thought grabbing breakfast there would be nice.

Reached the Cafe around 9am and what a little hidden gem this Cafe was, just awesome.  

Tommy and Jill opted for tea and scones, while Craig and I went for a half serve hot breakfast.

To look at it we all thought it was just a small place, but when you walk inside it's like the Tardis, bigger on the inside and the memorabilia they had everywhere inside was amazing.  You walked in through the front door and the kitchen and counter where you ordered were there, but if you went down the hallway past the toilets it opened up into a huge room with multiple tables that spilled out onto a beautiful veranda out the side and then down onto the grassy lawn. Do yourself a favour and drive to Bell to the Cafe called Pips and Cherries, you won't regret it.

After breakfast, we had a quick stop in at the Butcher, then we were off to Dalby to top up the fuel and head to our lunch stop at the Bowenville Hotel.

Absolutely superb weather again today for our little Pub Crawl.

The pub at Bowenville wasn't open when we arrived, opened at 12pm and we got there about say 11.30am.  

We wandered across the road toward the old Railway building which is in a little park (the Lady from the pub came out and asked Jill if we were waiting to come into the pub and that they would be open at 12pm).  Over in the park is a really cool little museum in that Railway building, well worth the wander over if you ever find yourself at Bowenville.

Now, back to the reason we came to Bowenville - lunch at the pub.  You can camp at this pub out the back (you need to ask at the bar obviously before you just pull up), someone did just that while we were having lunch.  The area out the back for camping is really pleasant, we would go back and stay.  As for lunch, it was yummy, sorry no photo just ate it 😁

We had intended on doing a pub stay tonight at Kulpi, but on our way to Bowenville we wondered whether Tommy and Jill had visited Jondaryan Woolshed, so over lunch we proposed to them a change in plan - they had not been to Jondaryan, so that's where we decided to head for our stay tonight.

We haven't stayed at the Woolshed for about 2 years and there is always something you missed seeing the last time you were there, right!

I gave them a call and booked 2 x powered sites but managed to grab 2 newly created sites on their own, next to the new camp kitchen they were building last time we were here, best thing is there is a fire pit at the camp kitchen for tonight.  However I have just realised I forgot to take a photo of our campsites ☹️

We looked out across the paddock down toward the unpowered creekside area.  Watched the sheep running around the paddock during the afternoon, with kids chasing them around.  Decided we'd go have a look around the Woolshed and historical buildings that they restore to their former glory, and lets not forget the  machinery sheds and windmills.

Everyone enjoyed wandering around the buildings, machinery (well the boys for that) and windmills.  I think Tommy and Jill were delighted with our suggestion of staying here tonight.

Because we all had such a big lunch, we decided that just some nibbles for tonight while having a couple of drinks would be enough and being it was lining up to be such a lovely evening, we'd around it out and take some of our timber up to the firepit and have a fire.

Sunday 6th July, 2025

This morning is a bit cool, so bacon and egg rolls for breakfast.  We'll head off this morning to the pub we were going to camp at last night and have lunch there instead, before moving onto our last camp for the weekend.

The Pioneer Hotel in Kulpi (pronounced Col Pie, for those interested to know), is our first stop today for lunch.  They offer the Pub Camping or Sip n Kip if you prefer in the paddock next to the pub.

We were greeted warmly by I can only assume was one of the owners from the side veranda, which is dog friendly.  Her first question was "Are you camping tonight", I had to reply unfortunately not this time, but we were hoping to have lunch", alright she replied we can do that and off she went.

Inside the pub was lovely and the gentleman behind the bar was very welcoming and friendly.  There's a pool table on the side veranda, so Craig and I had a game, while everyone relaxed with a drink and decided on what to have for lunch.

It was steak sandwiches and burgers for lunch and all were delicious.

Now, our final nights camp is at Swinging Bridge Park in Cooyar, Craig was really keen to camp there again and have another campfire, hence why we aren't camping at Kulpi (next time, we will definitely go back to The Pioneer Hotel and camp overnight).

We got to Swinging Bridge Park about 1.30pm, drove slowly through until we found a nice spot not too close to anyone else.  It wasn't packed which was good and the spot at the front of the park where I wanted to stay so Jill was closer to the public toilets already had some campers there.  Plenty of space to find another spot for us.

Couple of beers for the boys, then a walk up to the Swinging Bridge then onto the Cooyar Pub for a round of drinks.

Back at camp it was time to get the campfire organised, Craig is slow cooking a boneless lamb leg tonight for everyone with roast potatoes and brocccilini, should be good on a cold night!

Now, at this point in the afternoon, there seems to be an ownership issue for Barney, as to who's stick that actually is.  Tommy under the impression it was his stick for getting the fire going was sorely wrong according to Barney - Barney won....

Everyone got Barney's snuggles by the fire.

The best part of camping I reckon is sitting round a good campfire at the end of the night with good friends!

Monday 7th July, 2025 - The Wedding Anniversary Date!

Today is the day, our Anniversary, the reason we went on this pub crawl weekend.  Since we missed out on lunch at Hotel Radnor in Blackbutt at the start of the weekend, we're going to attempt to have lunch there on our way home.

We enjoyed a slow morning before packing up and heading off to Blackbutt, fingers crossed 🤞

Arrived about 12pm and thankfully the pub is open - Yah!!  Found a table in the beer garden (which is dog friendly) and settled in with a drink.  Perusing the menu which is really good, Tommy chose the Irish Lamb Stew, Jill the Chicken BLT, Craig went with the Beef Cheeks and myself of course got the Bacon & Avo Parmy.  Wow, all the meals were absolutely delicious, I gave my Parmy 10/10 which I rarely give out that score.  Everyone loved their meals and personally I can hardly wait to go back for a feed again.

From here it was just a straight run home and back to real life again.