Sunday In Tamworth, New South Wales, Australia

We drove out to Nundle today, a lovely sunny day for a drive in the country.

It's about 60 KMs from Tamworth, I wanted to re-visit a charming quilt shop I had found on a previous visit.

It’s called “The Cottage On The Hill” a couple of K’s out of the actual town, set in the midst of lovely rolling farmland, where the delightfully friendly proprietor, Kerry Swain, long arm quilter, quilt designer and author of two books and many patterns, holds retreats and serves local area quilters with a nice selection of fabrics, books, patterns and notions as well as her longarm services.

I was fortunate to visit in the middle of a retreat........

these ladies appear to be having a great time assisted by Kerry with various projects in progress,

And if her latest book is any indication at all these ladies eat very well on their retreat!

My SIL and me in front of Kerry's shop.

I purchased Kerry’s latest book, a compilation of delicious sounding recipes and adorable fabric related projects and she graciously autographed it for me and I found a few little quilty gifts for the friends who weren’t able to fit in my suitcase!

By this time it was well and truly lunch hour so we returned into the little town of Nundle and ate lunch in this vintage country pub- the iconic Aussie pies, peas and chips washed down with good Aussie beer or wine!

Well fed, we drove on through Wallabadah and Quirindi to Werris Creek another 75 KMs to check out the old railway museum there. I had been to Werris creek before both by road and by train [I have a funny story about that for later]

but never spent the time to see the museum so when my brother suggested we make the detour we willingly complied.

Werris Creek station has quite a history of service during WW2.

As it turned out we were happy that we made the detour!

Two retired railway men, volunteers both, happily answered questions and told us tales of the old rail days till well after official closing time.
I took pics until the dratted battery died and I did not have the spare with me.

My brother lent me his phone but we haven’t been able to transfer the pics to the computer so this is all that I have, sufficient to give you an idea of the variety of artifacts here from the past.

An old railway cart, I remember these, with an assortment of vintage signs displayed above.

This was what we sat upon at Central railway and in all station waiting rooms, there were park style benches out on the platforms.

And now for the funny story!

Many years go my Mum and I were on the way to visit my brother in Wee Waa, so we took the train from Maitland to Narrabri. What we did not know [normally making the trip by car] was that the train split at Werris Creek and half went to Brisbane the other half to Narrabri, our destination.

We also didn't know that our seats were assigned according to the destination, all those in the forward carriages for Brisbane, the others for Narrabri.

Around midnight or so my Mum suddenly woke and said "quick Roslyn we have to change trains here"- obviously in the fuzziness of being half asleep still she had misunderstood the conductor's announcement that the train was parting ways at Werris Creek. I bounded up and sleepily grabbed our bags off the rack and stumbled onto the platform in the cold, dark winter night. We stood there for twenty or so shivering minutes until our half of the train pulled back into the station....... and we re-boarded, the same carriage and the same seats! The passengers around us must have thought we were really crazy and we have had many a laugh about it since..

I have been composing this in the car on route to Sydney from Raymond Terrace so please forgive any typos etc! I have two different font sizes and I cannot seem to normalize them but I will try again from our hotel tonight.