Toowoomba, wk 6, 2011

September 21^st, Today we went to Queens Park to look at the gardens. It was a beautiful sunny day and we thought that the crowds would be easing off, as it was half way through the Festival of Flowers. Wrong again, there were busloads of people at the Park. The Garden displays were beautiful, full of brilliant colours and designs. The whole grounds were neat and lawns manicured. A band was playing relaxing music and adding to the atmosphere. We did notice that the few rose bushes that they had were not in full flower yet, so we decided to leave visiting the Rose Gardens for a couple of weeks and drove up to Picnic Point park. Once again, the gardens were great and they had live music in the Rotunda. The view is usually spectacular from this Park, but today the smoke from the nearby bushfires put a haze all over the Valley. Our next stop was one of The Chronicle Exhibition Gardens at 41 Stenner Street. This was one of a group of houses that charged a $4/person fee, which went to a local Charity. The flowers and the work required to prepare these gardens is amazing and very enjoyable. We also wanted to see the 1^st place winning garden but will have to leave that for another day as nobody could tell us where it was. We called into the Federal Hotel for a drink and flutter, to finish off a nice day out.

September 25^th, We went looking for the Top Prize Winning Garden and in desperation had to phone the Info Centre, to find out where it was. It was well worth the trouble to locate it, the house was huge, the gardens were spectacular and the owners were a nice old couple that were wandering around and talking to all the visitors. They told us that they did all the planting themselves, which is incredible. It was like walking through the Botanical Garden, that’s the feeling we had. Even the street, with its trees and flower beds, was immaculate.

September 27^th, Still have no idea when the parts, to repair the Van will be received so, I paid for 2 more weeks at the Caravan Park, that takes us up to October 10^th.

October 1^st, After Table Tennis, this morning, I had to (as instructed by Val) go directly to the Empire Theatre and purchase tickets for the Carl Barron Show, on the 15^th October. Luckily, they still had seats left for the last Show, half way back and towards the centre of the Theatre. That now means that we will not get away from Toowoomba before the 16^th October, at the earliest, and want to be in Sydney on the 25^th October. I can’t tell you how much I hate having to make a “fast’ trip to anywhere.

October 3^rd, Today marks the end of our 6^th week in Toowoomba and I still don’t have a booking for our Van to go in for repairs!