Penefathing Inn
By David Parmiter
“Isn’t it spelt wrongly?” “Shouldn’t it be Pennyfarthings’?”
“The tourists”, smiles the English owner of Penefathings Inn, Riy Fathers, “they always want to correct it!” Maybe it’s all part of his marketing strategy … and it seems to be working for him.
When he set up the English Pub on the Mapleton Road, just outside Montville 9 years ago, Riy (Welsh spelling) wondered what to call it. “The King’s Head” somehow didn’t seem appropriate on the Blackall Range in south-east Queensland. His god-daughter is named Penelope (Penny); so put Pene- and Fathers together and make it fit with the huge Victorian cycles ‘parked’ out at the front – and you have Penefathings Inn.
The boutique hotel and restaurant is a popular stop for weekend tourists doing the Blackall Range circuit from Landsborough along the Range and down into either Nambour or via the Obi Obi Creek to Kenilworth and Conondale.
Penefathings boasts a range of 12 beers, but don’t expect them all to be English. You can ask for Bass, Worthingtons or Watneys; but what you’ll get is VB (brewed by Carlton in Victoria, but US owned), Cascade (from Tasmania) or Stella Artois (and that doesn’t come from England either). But you will also find “Guinness” (Irish) and “Old English Bitter on tap; and this one tastes like it comes from London or the Midlands. “No,” laughs Riy, “ this one’s brewed right here, on the Sunshine Coast!” Talk to the locals, like John the cellarman, and you’ll find out the history of the region. The early days of the red cedar cutters and the sawmills. The later industries based on dairy farming; the milk, butter and cheese that is still produced here on the Range at Maleny and Kenilworth. And the days of now – when, following the council amalgamations last year, the decisions are made in Maroochydore and the central bureaucrats now rule the Range.
Today, in 2010, the future survival of the Range communities of Maleny, Montville, Flaxton and Mapleton depends upon tourism. Not just the traditional “lookers” after the arts and crafts on display in the many galleries and weekend markets; but increasingly the eco-tourists who want to explore on foot and savour the sights, sounds and smells of the rainforest, the hills and the creeks.
Finally, there are the tourists who are searching for a new, and more serene, lifestyle for themselves. As the dairy farms make way for residential development more and more people are coming up to the Range to look, to sample and hopefully to find their future homes for the 3rd Age. In time, some of them may settle here to write, to paint, to create beautiful things from natural resources like gemstones and wood. Others, like Riy Fathers, will see the opportunity to set up a small business that reflects the life in days gone by. The days of Charles Dickens, Jane Austen and Thomas Hardy. The days when people went about their daily business, and their pleasures, riding on a pennyfarthing. (And yes, I did spell that correctly). Just before Christmas, Riy opened his second Pennefathings Inn in the five star Rumba Resort at Bulcock Beach in Caloundra.
Just before Christmas, Riy opened his second Pennefathings Inn in the five star Rumba Resort at Bulcock Beach in Caloundra.
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