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I’ve decided to lean into the idea of mini-holidays – scouting out one-night stays within a reasonable radius of home, and enjoying a few weekends away when time allows.
In March of 2023, my husband Ben and I packed our magical stallion (otherwise known as the Suzuki Swift or ‘Bluey’ – guess what colour it is) and headed to the Peanut Capital of Australia – Kingaroy!
Given the option, we’ll always take the scenic route – so headed from our home base in Brisbane through to Toowoomba, where we took a drive around some of our old University haunts and stared at a collection of ducks living their best lives in the Japanese Gardens. Were they swimming to Mordor? No-one can disprove it.
After taking a stroll around the gardens, and avoiding the wrath of the geese (I swear they sharpen their beaks on the rocks overnight), we made a bee-line (goose-line??) out of Toowoomba to Highfields. One of our favourite cafes in the area is The Chocolate Cottage – delicious eats, tasty chocolate treats, and lots of little gift options to browse. It was a struggle to not order cakes and chocolate before our lunch – but we made it through, like champions. Really we should have been given a chocolate reward …
After a wonderful lunch, and a snoop around the giftwares, we hit the road again and travelled onward to Kingaroy and our accommodation for the night – Room Motels.
The complex was easy to find and parking is right outside your unit door. The lovely people at Reception were friendly and there were no issues with check in. I did spend quite a few minutes ooh-ing and ahh-ing over the complimentary windscreen washing facilities (a bucket and a squeegee) that they leave next to your car’s nose – but this was true to character and my husband ignored me and continued to drag our few overnight possessions into the unit. Full disclosure – I did not use the squeegee and I regret it to this day.
For your grocery needs, there’s an Aldi supermarket right across the road, and a Woolworths an easy walk around the corner.
The rooms are all close together, which you’d expect in a motel-like accommodation, and there were raised boardwalks between the rooms that had chairs and tables to sit at. If you were travelling with friends or family, and both wanted to sit at your little tables at the same time – that would be a nice area for a conversation. If you weren’t – your neighbours might not appreciate you staring at them while they unpack and have their cuppas. Or they might – who can tell, offer them a biscuit and stop being so rude.
We had a young family staying in the unit next to us, and the kids got a kick out of running up and down the boardwalk, which created a bit of noise – but they were respectful and it didn’t bother us. Why am I mentioning it then? Well just in case you’d also like to run up and down on the planks, be aware that you can – and should – also make noises like a galloping horse.
For those of you that like to do a sniff-test on entering any new accommodation – and let’s be honest, that’s all of us – you’ll be pleased to know that the room both looked and smelled clean. Sometimes the cleaning products can be overwhelming, but not in this case. Sniff to your heart’s delight. We didn’t even see any dust – can you imagine!
The room was quite spacious – lots of room to still be a horse, if you had trouble shaking that off between the boardwalk and entering the unit.
The kitchen gave me caravan vibes, which I wasn’t mad about, as I’d love to travel around in a van but don’t want to because of the whole toilet situation. Driving around with a toilet with you? I’d feel like it was chasing me. A story for another day perhaps.
I’ve written in my notes that I was pleased to see there was a separate kitchen and bathroom – which is weird, because that’s always the case. I don’t want to be making my tacos in the shower, Glen. Anyway, I digress – more about toilets later.
Immediately on entry, there was a seating area and a desk for all your business needs. I was strangely excited by a proper desk chair – even though I have my own chair at home and had no need for it on this overnight trip. I did sit at the desk in the evening to do my sketch of the day, and we both did our respective parts.
You might notice in the picture of the bed below, that there are THINGS on it, and not just that display pillow and foot blanket that immediately gets thrown in a corner. There were PRESENTS for us! And even more in the bathroom, that I was yet to become aware of.
On the bed were complimentary eyeshades and ear plugs! For when you don’t want to hear your loved ones snore, or see them do anything remotely irritating while you’re enjoying a nice time away, thank you very much. How sweet! Now shut your eyes and ears!
The room compendium was waiting for us on the kitchen bench, and housed a Breakfast Menu that we appreciated but didn’t use. I loved that there was an option to order a packed lunch for the next day, have never seen that before – so cute! There was also a full in-room dining menu too, but we weren’t hungry enough for a whole lamb shank. I could happily gnaw on one while I write this though – so keep in mind that you might want to pack one for the drive home.
As I settle in to a room, I often ponder on power points – as I am a modern woman with a dependancy on electricity. On grid for me, people. On grid. There were an abundance of power points in this room. In my amazement I counted them and there were 9 dual points of power in the room – not counting Ben and I. You might feel the need to plug different things into all the points just to make use of them, and this I can only encourage.
Are you a lover of cupboard space? Well then this room is right up your spacious alley. There was plenty of room to store away your goods.
We looked in every cupboard and were mildly amazed by the space.
As we opened every cupboard and drawer in the room, we were delighted to find a small milk in the fridge and to find a fridge. We would have been even more delighted to find a big milk, but as we were only staying one night and are grown humans who can purchase our own cream – we didn’t spend too much time dwelling on it. Just the right amount of time.
There were complimentary coffee and tea sachets for us – and two Nestle hot chocolate packets. Now, while not a patch on our favourite Douwe Egberts hot choc (we call him Doug Egbert) a sweet treat is never amiss. And there were two choc chip cookies that were tasty and were tasted quick smart.
The room had air con and Foxtel, so you can be cool and watch Billy Ray Cyrus sing Achy Breaky Heart to you from the comfort of your own king sized bed, as you eat your free biscuit or supermarket lemon tart.
Now I promised some more talk about toilets, so don’t say I never give you anything. The bathroom in this unit was clean, tidy and full of presents. There were so many complimentary items that I had to do a stocktake and read them all out to Ben, which he loved.
Let me list them for you now, so you can have a similar level of enjoyment: Shower cap; Sewing kit; Comb; Looth bath pad (I called him Lex Loother); Vanity kit; Shaving kit; Sanitary bag; Dental kit – and normal shampoo, conditioner and shower gel. The hand soap was nicely wrapped too, if that matters to you. I opened the vanity kit to see what was so vain about it, and it was some ear cleaner buds, nail file and cloth. So vain.
What are your thoughts on towels hanging so close to the toilet? I know they need to make best use of the space, but I do have anxious moments wondering if its going to fall off or something is going to fall upwards.
The floor of this bathroom was pretty cool, it had sparkles in it so looked like a medley of different colours depending on the angle you looked at it from. And let’s be honest, the main angle was from the toilet.
The shower had a great water pressure and heat level. I might be in the minority, but I’m always glad when there isn’t a waterfall shower head, as I don’t feel they generally have as good a water pressure. Take the pressure up, as John Farnham instructed in his 1990s hit.
Now the only downside with the bathroom was that the sliding door to the room was frosted – but not in a way that you couldn’t see the outline of whoever was behind it. Ben and I had a gentleman’s agreement to not watch each other through the frosted glass when either was on the toilet. You were welcome to do a dance to signify when you were done though, or on exiting the shower. Dealer’s choice.
We settled in and had a great night’s sleep – despite a massive storm rolling into Kingaroy during the night. We were woken by huge rattles of thunder and flashes of lightning – I was very brave, but Ben insisted on a cuddle to quieten the nerves. The motel lost power for about an hour, but as it was snooze o’clock we didn’t mind and it came back on pretty quickly. When we checked out in the morning, the lovely person on reception actually apologised for the storm – which I can only take to mean that the owners of the Room Motels are Gods and can control the weather. Sweet.
On our way out of Kingaroy, we took a 40 minute drive to Goomeri specifically to go to the Goomeri Bakery – which is a wonderland. We got some meaty breakfast delights and coffee, which set us up for the day, and were very tempted to buy all their other food.
We then drove back into Kingaroy and went to see The Peanut Van about some Peanuts. This is one famous Peanut Van, and rightly so. The people are lovely and the nuts are plenty. I bought some home for friends and family, even though my own nut taste tends to stray away from the peanut family. Reports are that all were happy with the mouth feel.
After filling our car with peanuts, we drove just outside of Kingaroy to the Pottique Lavender Farm. We’ve been here before and are never disappointed. We didn’t have lunch or coffee this time, as we were full of bakery goods and nuts – but we did pick up a few things from their HUGE gift shop, including a lovely bottle of local sauvignon blanc, and enjoyed the gardens.
To sum up, we had a wonderful night away in Kingaroy and would totally recommend Room Motels if you’re looking for somewhere to stay in the area. Friendly people, clean and tidy accommodation, and lots of things to see in the vicinity to amuse all of your senses. Especially the nut ones.
