Queensland

We've now entered Queensland, which means we've taken the caravan into every mainland state and territory except the ACT. First stop was Goondiwindi, situated right on the MacIntyre River, which forms the state border with NSW. The town is most famous for Gunsynd, a champion racehorse of the early 1970s. We visited the small Gunsynd display at the local information centre, with trophies, newspaper clippings and a video showing his most famous races. We also did the town heritage walk and, given there wasn't a lot else to do, ended up having a couple of games of golf.

Some time ago Queensland used the slogan 'Beautiful one day, perfect the next'. Our experience, unfortunately, has been 'Beautiful one day, crap the next'. For our couple of days at Goondiwindi we had perfect weather - blue skies, sunshine, mid-20s. We've now moved on to Toowoomba and the weather has also moved on - its now cloudy, drizzly and, with a top today of 17, pretty cold, with not much better forecast for the next few days. You can see the difference in the sky in the two photos! Toowoomba is situated on an escarpment about 130km from Brisbane, and with something like 100,000 people living here is a substantial sized city.

Today we did the local scenic drive, which given Toowoomba's position provided many dramatic views and lookouts. With 240 parks and gardens, Toowoomba likes to call itself the 'Garden City'. In between showers we walked around a couple of the more interesting parks. As many people would know, Toowoomba was badly affected by floods earlier this year, and many of the local walking tracks were damaged and are still closed. We're still hoping to get some walking done in the rest of the week that we are here, weather permitting, but may have to head further afield to find them.

Before our drive today John decided to get his hair cut. He came home most indignant, the hairdresser didn't even ask for a seniors card, she just automatically charged him the pensioner rate. I guess when you tell people that you are retired and living the life of a grey nomad they just make certain assumptions!