July 2018, Finch Hatton, Qld
It’s a deliriously warm afternoon and from our showgrounds campsite we walk a few metres to the pub on the main street for lunch. By the photos on the walls The Criterion Hotel was once a handsome two storey Queenslander that survived being almost washed away in 1958 by an angry and somewhat swollen Cattle Creek. Nowadays the old girl has succumbed to sheets of cladding and corrugated iron and a slathering of quite possibly the wrong shade of blue paint but the signature ‘Cri’ pies are good. Little crimped bundles of beef filled pastry with chips and good old Queensland gravy of course are lip smackingly good. We sit outside on the veranda, soaking up the warmth like old cats. Beside us there’s a palm fringed lawn, beyond which is a public toilet, a playground and the busily shunting cane train. All town essentials around these parts.
Just the sort of place I like! And the pies must have been better than the Ones we recently ate at the Federal Hotel, Wallumbilla: no chips, no gravy.
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Gosh I just looked up the Wallumbilla. They get some great raps on Wikicamps.
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I could do one (or two) of those pies
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Oh they were good.
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Sounds very relaxing and that Cri pie looks like a winner. 🙂
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Sure is. You must check out this beautiful valley in your travels. It gets so little publicity but maybe that is why it is so peaceful.
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Quite likely.
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