Railway Scones

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The Railway Museum at Milang inhabited a collection of old carriages overlooking Lake Alexandrina. Staffed entirely by volunteers, it celebrated all things light rail: the forgotten little railways that hauled things between mines and around industrial sites without any of the kudos and fanfare of the suburban and intercity networks.

 

In a fine example of procrasti-snacking, we took ourselves to the Railway Museum for afternoon tea rather than face sorting through stuff in the storage shed. A group of jolly geriatric hikers had just finished scoffing their scones and vacated their seats for us.  "They all live on the other side of the Peninsula," confided the walk leader. "But I live on this side so I organised a walk and made them come over the hill."  

"We walk once a month," chimed in a tiny little lady with a big backpack. "But the walks get slower as we get older."  Not that they looked particularly slow to me as they bounced down the steps and set off for a quick spin through the wetlands to warm down.

Volunteers served us hot coffee and enormous scones, lamenting that they couldn't use their brand spanking new fancy pants coffee machine because if they did all the fuses blew and the lights went out.  They laid the blame squarely at the feet of the coffee machine.  I suspect that the ancient wiring in the train carriage may have been the culprit.  The volunteer electrician who could diagnose the problem had the hide to be gallivanting somewhere in Europe so the Museum was stuck using their old coffee machine and this, according to the volunteer baristas, was a tragedy. 

No need for dinner tonight.  I'll be chock full of scones.

Business was slow in the Railway Museum: the volunteers gathered around a back table and I eavesdropped blatantly on their chatter. "I cooked enough dinner for three days this morning. Then my husband came in here and ate a big hamburger! I told him he better eat his dinner tonight!" The other customer, obviously a regular, handed over a big bottle of tahini to be kept in the fridge and used in lieu of cream for his future scones. As we paid and left they were debating the pros and cons of Rolex watches which someone had bought in China recently, and the company was evenly divided into pro- and anti- tahini camps.  

It's always entertaining at the Milang Railway Museum, and then there's always the trains to look at too.

In the spirit of further procrastination we went for a free train ride on a little battery-powered train which once hauled explosives in the Salisbury munitions factory during WWII.  

Thrills.

I'll spare you the joys of the storage shed.  On our way out of town we visited the lake and walked out on the jetty.  

Not much happens in Milang on a winter weekend.



We went home to the dogs who greeted us with exuberance, convinced as they were that they had been abandoned forever.
 

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