Western Qld - Chinchilla Weir to Linville Railway Camp

 Day 21 - Friday 26th September, 2025

Last day of our holidays, tomorrow home and back to reality 😮‍💨  But first we have one more stop and tonight we're at the Linville Railway donation camp, we've been talking about staying here for ages and it's not far from home but we just haven't gotten out here.

Agreed on pies from the bakery for breakfast, stopped at a park to eat them.  We took some back roads from McAlister across to Kaimkillenbum to miss Dalby and stay off the highway and it wasn't a bad trip, mostly bitumen, little bit of gravel which was in good condition, way more interesting then travelling the highway and more scenic. 

No stopping at The Bun Hotel today 😮  but we stopped at Maclagan Butcher so Craig could go shopping 😆  He picked up a really nice slab o Rib Eye fillet sliced, some beef ribs and a good filleting knife.  That meat has maxed out the space we had in freezer after my excited buy up at the Mitchell Butchers.

Onwards to Linville, arriving about 12pm, perfect timing to have lunch at the Linville Hotel!!  Found a spot up in the corner and set up a basic camp, it was busier than we thought it would be but makes sense when we thought about with the Railway Trial and it being school holidays and all.  You have toilets, $2.00 Hot Showers, rubbish bins, campfires allowed and 2 x powered sites @ $5.00 extra/night on top of your donation which is fair enough.

Over to the pub for lunch, making our donation at the hall along the way.  Pub is dog friendly in the beer garden, so we found a shadey spot away so Barney settle and not be over excited thinking every human in the place is there to see him.

We ordered some the small plates lunch and poor Craig while carrying them back to our table went for a slide down the slope and pretty much all of our lunch fell onto the ground.  He hurt his back and shoulder in the process, so lunch was not off to a good start.

I took the dropped wings and stuff back to the bar and was going to re-order our lunch nd pay for them, when the owner just said to the young Lady I was talking to "just tell the kitchen the order and give them a new beeper and don't charge them".  I said to the owner I was happy to pay but he said "no, we will happily replace your meals no charge" - I thought that was really lovely of them and they didn't have to.

When our replacement meals were ready, I went and collected them, Craig was not game to have another go 😖

Lunch was very nice.......  eventually 😆

Back at camp Craig went for a nap, his shoulder he had surgery on was really hurting after his tumble, as was his back so hopefully he'll feel better later this afternoon.

Barney and I amused ourselves for that couple of hours, watching the new arrivals and the comings and goings.

Late afternoon we went for a walk to look at the old Railway Station building and carriages.  There is an information board with the history and also info on the Rail Trial you can walk, ride a bike or horse along.

Making our last night easy, we decided to have dinner at the pub - chicken parmy and beef & guinness pie, both were delicious and no tumbles happened due to sitting above the slope in the beer garden area.

We ended up leaving straight after we finished dinner because we were being smashed by mozzies and the same happened when we got back to camp.  So we jumped inside and decided we'd give Netflix a run on our TV but ended up watching Formula One updates instead 😄

In the middle of the night Barney woke up and started to growl, then woofed - our little boy is growing up and had his first night time guard 🐕🥰  Pretty sure it was the cows next door walking past, we got up anyway and wound the awning in to stop it flapping in the gusts of wind.

Very nice, quiet camping area and the pub is lovely serving delicious meals and friendly country vibes.