We had an array of cars on Wednesday 26th June. 7 old with 3 modern cars headed off early on a clear winters morning from the clubhouse. It was quite an uninteresting journey north up the M1. The more scenic route, unfortunately was too time consuming for this run. We exited at Beenleigh & met another 8 club members. We enjoyed the sunshine at Albert River Park. The whole 21 of us finished our cuppas & continued on our merry way.

A caravan held us up briefly, but the M1 & Logan motorway was quite well behaved. Our welcome to Ipswich was defined by beautiful old homes, the Queenslanders with their wrought iron fret work, corrugated roofs, lovely wide verandahs with typical front stairs.

Once at Queensland museum rail workshops at Ipswich we met Heinz & 2 of his Rover car club friends. Our quietly spoken guide Ken talked to us about the numerous red brick buildings before us. the fighter jets from RAAF base Amberley were competing with Ken. Originally this site was a rifle range, then in 1885 these Queensland rail buildings were workshops for a huge number of occupations including blacksmiths, boiler makers, coppersmiths, coach & carriage builders, carpenters, just to name a few.
A 1901 coal fired power house sits grandly amongst hedges that have been sculpted into the shapes of a locomotive and carriages by some very talented gardeners. At the workshops peak, there were 3000 workers. The dining hall (now a cafe) served 600, three course meals a day. The pride of the museum is Loco 444. She was made in Maryborough in 1908 & retired in 1968 when diesel came in. Loco 444 was the last steam train that ran on a time table. Now she’s heritage listed. The tilt train simulator was a bit of fun where you could “drive” the train to a top speed of 160kph, which is the fastest train in Australia. The model train exhibit was very detailed & all to scale. Miniature trains ran around the tracks, of this believable city.

A short drive at 12.30 took us to the Mi Hi Tavern for a welcomed lunch. We all enjoyed each others company over the course before heading back to the Gold Coast.
Lynne Rafton.

This run started with morning tea at the club house and a friendly get together. After morning we all headed off to the Cenotaph at Maudsland where we all went to the Cenotaph in the middle of the road.Colin then asked us to look at the names. He had picked two of the name these being Edwin Beattie and Frank Ness Wilson and told us their war story from WW1.Colin then asked us to look at the names. He had picked two of the name these being Edwin Beattie and Frank Ness Wilson and told us their war story from WW1.

Once we had fished talking about some of our family in WW! and WW2, we headed off to Nerang RSL for lunch.It was a great days outing with six club cars and two modern vehicles, if you did not come along you missed a great outing.