Tiffany2019年2月

Rubern Lodge is like having a farmstay close to the centre of Chinchilla, complete with mobile coverage. Being city folk, my friends and I expected a room in a large Queenslander style homestead with residential housing either side. What we got was so much more. Rubern lodge is surrounded by and immaculate garden near the house- and horse yards and stables. So, when driving up look for a rural property with a log fence painted white, complete with cattle grid to drive over. Rubern Lodge has quite a bit of history behind it, having been a church, a community hall and seasonal workers accommodation before being renovated into its current form. Rubern's past is still visible as quirky high ceilings, verandahs and an interesting barn-style door in the downstairs common area. All of this has been freshly renovated. We stayed at Rubern because we wanted to go to the Chinchilla melon festival and none of us fancied camping. Turns out that while Rubern is within the Chinchilla township it's far enough away that the Saturday night concert was only faintly heard from the outside balconies. All the motels within walking distance of the festival would have had very loud music to contend with until 10-11pm, which might be an issue if one had to settle small children to sleep. Bonus finds- 1) The pool is great for a soak after a long day at the festival and to be honest I only noticed it was on the list of amenities on the day of our arrival. I kinda booked in a hurry as non-camping accommodation was booking up quickly, and all I cared about was air-conditioning and decent beds. 2)There is also a great display of old farm machinery to check out behind the house, along with a pond and jetty for quiet contemplation. The beds in this family room were very comfortable and Shelley has gone the extra mile to provide high quality bed linens and towels. This room also contains a small bar fridge and what looks like a matching small freezer. There isn't a sink in the room so washing up or food prep involving more than microwave work has to be done downstairs. All the verandah upstairs is fenced off from the stairs with pool-fencing style gates, so small children could be kept safely from wandering. There are plenty of different seating areas both upstairs and downstairs, all shared, but there's enough places to hide away if peace and quiet is desirable. Other tips- 1) Shelley cares for alot of horses, always ask her before approaching any of them. Being from the city and unused to large animals, it is easy to forget that animals have different temperaments and therefore may be unpredictable when approached by strangers. My friend got the most awesome funny horse selfie, but from just outside grabbing distance, based on Shelley's advice that this particular colt was unpredictable. 2) You will effectively be staying in an Australian bush setting, complete with wildlife! Please remember to close bathroom doors after use to keep wildlife out of the toilets. Also, lights off in the bathrooms at night will keep flying insects and cobwebs outside where they belong. Note that all rooms are upstairs, and 2 of 3 bathrooms are downstairs, so first in best dressed!