18 - Toowoomba Qld, Carnival of Flowers. 19 - 25/9/18

Entry 18 – Toowoomba Carnival of Flowers. 20/9/18 – 25/9/18.

Back at Toowoomba we spent our first two days attending to chores, acquired an official program booklet for Toowoomba’s Carnival of Flowers, purchased Thursday’s edition of the local paper, ‘The Chronicle,’ for some lead up reading information and Friday’s paper with a magazine type publication insert, showing a comprehensive description of all activities.

Day 1 - a Friday and we decided to view the two main Parks before the onslaught of the crowds, promoted to be in excess of 100,000 people. The best description for the pleasure our eyes experienced and the sweat perfume our noses were constantly tantalized by as pictures. 1^st - Laurel Bank Park.

Sydney Opera House?

Rabbit

Spider

Elephant

The three below pictures are a commonwealth games floral arrangement, viewed from a stand, unfortunately unable to be captured in one frame.

The below pictures show the Croquet Club with playing grounds surrounded by flowers.

2^nd - Queens Park which included the Toowoomba Botanical Gardens.

All sorts of bloomers

We also wandered around side show alley and spent time viewing some wonderful art displays.

It was the 69^th Toowoomba Carnival of Flowers where the local community come alive sprucing their gardens in private homes, business premises and the gardeners charged with looking after the local parks. For 2018, 114 gardens were judged for various awards and all were open to visitors during the Carnival period.

After being seduced by the magnificent floral arrangements at the towns two main parks we thought we had peaked at the highest level of delights for garden viewing, thinking it can’t get any better than this.

Day 2 - we decided to view some of the local home gardens open for viewing. We had recorded addresses for 6 homes thinking we would more than likely view only a couple with the magnificent floral arrangements of the towns two main parks still stuck in our minds. The home gardens were so delightful we viewed all 6. Along our days chosen route we spent time at the Downs Steam Railway and Toowoomba’s Japanese Garden, ‘Ju Raku En.’ Again, we present some of our photographs to show another pleasurable time.

Day 2 continued at 3pm with the Floral Parade where 100,000 people were expected to line the streets. It lasted nearly 1 ½ hours for the parade to pass by us. Another marvellous display.

Can the driver see through his glasses?

Latest air bag innovation

In need of winding up

Day 3 - We were both sound asleep when our alarm announced it was 4.45 am. It was Sunday morning, and all was quiet outside. The ambient air temperature was cool, and we thought a hot cuppa would be nice. Unfortunately, we hadn’t used our thermos or our insulated cups for a while and had ejected them from the caravan prior leaving for this trip in an attempt to cut down on the amount of gear we were carrying. With our cups in a bag, our kettle in hand with freshly boiled water we drove to the Laurel Bank Park to watch the ABC radio broadcast of “Australia All Over with MACCA.”

We were seated around 5.30 am with about 30 other audience attendees which swelled to an audience of around 500 plus by 9 am. Once seated we made our cuppas and consumed some freshly buttered fruit loaf for breakfast, it started our day nicely. MACCA, (Ian McNamara) with a cordless microphone in hand walked amongst the audience interviewing random people as well as taking phone calls from people around Australia and other locations around the World. He talked to people either side of us and in front, leaving us alone, possibly we didn’t look like his targeted ‘demographics?’ It was very interesting, watching the rushing about keeping the radio show on track, attending to spasmodic scenarios in a smooth professional manner. It was fabulous entertainment where we were glued to our seats till stumps.

We were back at our caravan about 11.30am feeling weary from an early start, still on a high from the morning activities. We thought an afternoon siesta would help to reboot our weary bodies, but our brains refused the offer of sleep, still abuzz from the wonderful morning’s entertainment. We walked around the show grounds having a look at some other activities still unable to relax for that afternoon siesta. It must have been an exceptionally good ‘MACCA’ show providing a great self-satisfaction feeling over our bodies, sleep finally arriving around 9pm.

Day 4 – We viewed the grand champion house and the champion native house gardens. For us we were mesmerised by the native garden.

Map of Australia all in flowers

Returning to town from the above two homes we got lost as our maps didn’t show any roads in the area. We just kept following the signs to Toowoomba. We must have been destined to get lost in this area with a home catching our attention and they even had Stephen’s favourite doctor.

We also walked around a couple of parks with impressive scenery in their own rights. Boyce Gardens and Picnic Point.

Festivities were scheduled to run over ten days. We crammed in as much viewing as we could over the first 4 days of events. Each day ending with an aura of contentedness and exhaustion. We were quite comfortable with our participation of available activities and thought it time to move on to a location where we could chill out for a few days, rebooting our weary bodies. Even if we had stayed on we wouldn’t have been able to participate in all the available activities over the ten days. There were many pleasurable activities at no cost, many at gold coin donations and as many with price tags in the $100’s, all catering for a broad range of people.

Our initial thoughts, the Toowoomba Carnival of Flowers to be a substitute for missing out on the Canberra Floriade Festival. Unfortunately, it had the opposite effect. Toowoomba Carnival of Flowers was so, so pleasurable we had to lock in the Canberra Floriade Festival as a must see!