DAY 18 - A DAY WITH ALAN & VICKI IN MOORE....

 It was very cold when we woke this morning.  Neither of us wanted to get up and we lay in bed just chatting until almost 8am.. In fact the only thing that got us up what our desperate need to visit the loo.

Alan and Vicki also slept in this morning.  The temperature went down below 6 degrees.  Fortunately Alan still had the fire stoked from the evening before. 

It was almost mid morning when we settled on the verandah in the morning sun for breakfast...

Breakfast on the verandah

It was a lovely relaxing morning and none of us seemed in a hurry to leave the table.  In fact it was more like brunch than breakfast.  After we finally cleaned up from our meal, we took a lovely walk around Alan and Vicki's garden.  It is truly beautiful and so peaceful.  

After our time out in the garden and warm sunshine, we came in and had a great chat about solving the problems of the world, and then Alan spent some time showing some of his many beautiful rocks that he has been collecting in his travels.  Nature is amazing... the beauty of patterns....

Mid afternoon, we decided to go for a little walk around Moore.  Moore has become a popular destination since the introduction of the Brisbane Valley Rail Trail, and is also a popular weekend destination from those wanting a break from the pressures of the city.  It is also very close to the beautiful scenery of the Somerset Dam precinct..

Alan and Vicki's home is adjacent to the Brisbane Valley Rail Trail and we started our walk around town by walking along the trail..

As we wandered along the back streets in Moore, Vicki and Alan were giving us a little about the history or Moore... Moore's total population is under 300 people, although there looks to be a bit of construction going on out there at the moment.  Alan was sharing with us how real estate sales are up at the moment as people are finding it a better option to live here now as it is less than 100kms to the city.  With more people working from home since Covid, people no longer need to live in the rat race...

 

We checkout the Old Church Gallery...  This is a privately owned and operated gallery and it features not only paintings, but photography, sculpture, ceramics, hand made jewelry, beautifully crafted woodwork and also has many beautiful gifts for purchase. 

The Gallery owner Deborah Johnston-Booker,  is delighted to share her vision of a beautiful art space featuring a diverse range of work from established and emerging artists as well as allowing visitors time to relax and enjoy a cuppa and a snack.  She was super friendly and even though she was able to close for the day, she was happy to let us have a quick look around...

Old Church Gallery..

From here we wandered across the road to walk along the rail trail a little more and to check out the old rail station in Moore...

The countryside around here is just beautiful, very green and very rural, but also very close to many other lovely little rural communities and less than an hours drive into Brisbane and the Sunshine Coast.  It is also close to Kingaroy and the Bunya Mountains, and equally close to Toowoomba, so they really do have the best of both worlds..

From here we headed back into town to check out the only eateries in town...  Apparently there is a little rivalry amongst the two restaurants,  with some rather odd things happening between them.  Both places do take aways as well and to go out for dinner at one of these places is a bit of a treat.   Since the Brisbane Valley Rail Trail has opened,  both of these cafes do a roaring trade on the weekends...

As we walked around town, we came across this really weird and very ugly big icon character.  We have no idea what it is about or what purpose it serves in town, but we couldn't walk past without photographing it...

He has a pinocchio nose....

 Moore is also very RV friendly and have a 20 hour free camp at the Stanley Gates Park on the Main Street in Moore.  There were quite a few vans parked up there for the evening when we walked though.  They even have a couple of sites where you can hook up to power for free, although a donation is always welcome...

 

After walking through the park we headed to the Moore's Soldier's Memorial Hall.  This hall also houses the Supper Room Art Gallery where you can enjoy tea and cakes whilst admiring the displays of local art.  The Soldier's Memorial Hall holds a special space for Alan as a returned soldier, and in the past he has organised and led Anzac services from here...  

The locals do tend to look after the hall as we found some lovely little gardens around it full of colourful flowering plants...

Soldier's Memorial Hall

Donations for the free camping can be left here...

Studying the Brisbane Valley Rail Trail...

Some of the lovely little gardens around the building..

From here we decided to go around the block and check our some of the other newer homes built here in the past couple of years on our way home...  We did find a few little treasures...

Found this gecko on someone's gate..

Alan pointing out some of the landmarks around town...

We turned around and found this rather neat garden.  The owners, have bought and old warehouse like building and renovated it into a home.  Appartently it is quite quirky inside....

We checked out a cute little original home from Moore and then one of the newer homes that had only been built in the last few years...

This home has only been built in the last few years...

One of the original homes built in Moore - still lived in today...

By the time we walked past here we were nearly back home... 

Moore has it's own beautiful little church.  It has real character and is still in use regularly today for church services and all funerals or weddings in the district...

It was after 5.30pm when we arrived back home.  Initially we had only planned to stay overnight, but  it was so good catching up with these guys, and we had so much to catch up on that our one night stretched into two..

Rather than cook dinner tonight, we decided to take Alan and Vicki out for dinner.  We decided to go for a drive to Linville, which is 7kms down the road and have dinner at the famour Linville Pub.  The Linville Hotel is a historic country pub  which is located on the 161km Brisbane Valley Rail Trail. It is located in the stunning Brisbane Valley  and is surrounded by mountains in the tiny village of Linville.  On the weekend, they have live music on the lawns.  Across the road from The Linville Hotel is the old disused railway station and museum plus a popular free camping area with public toilets. The hotel has a rich history dating back to 1904.  During the 6 months it was closed during Covid, they spent quite a bit of time and money doing some major renovatings and built an outdoor eating area.  This pub is hugely popular as a weekend destination fof city folks wanting to escape the hussle and bussle of city life...

The Linville Pub

Lots of renovations has now made it a destination pub...

 

We had run ahead to book a table, although they told us that due the week we wouldn't have an issue getting a table.  The main bar area was pretty busy but the restaurant section only had a few other couples there.  We all had the same meal, except that Steve and I decided to share ours as I wasn't hugely hungry.  We also ordered two deserts, and both couples shared a desert also...

Once we entered the pub, we noticed the new rustic look where they have tried to incorporate the old with the new...

Once again, the pub has a good reputation and was highly recommended to us.    The service was good, and our meal was bought to us quickly.  Staff continued to wait on us throughout the evening but were also happy to engage in conversation with us also.  The meal didn't disappoint.  

Steve and I shared this meal for dinner...

As the restaurant wasn't hugely busy tonight, they started clearing tables around 8.30pm, so we decided it was time to leave.  We did notice when were were leaving though that the pub had a lovely tradition of having lots of ribbons tied to the fence with the names of patrons written on them.  This was something novel that we haven't seen previously so of course out came the phone to photograph it.

Alan checking out some of the names on the ribbon

Once home, we boiled the kettle for a cuppa and Vicki was keen for another game of "5Crowns".  This has been a new game for them, so we got out the cards and played again...

It was a bit of an unreal game, with us all neck to neck for most of the game.  In the end it was Vicki that won.

It was after 11pm when we finally retired for the night...