Easter at Toowoomba

Once again we have come to Toowoomba in southern Queensland for Easter. We were here last year but given the weather then we decided that there were still things to see here, and we knew we could get a caravan site over the awkward Easter period. The weather has been much kinder to us this year and we have got several walks in.

Our first foray was to Mt Basalt Reserve, about 80 km south west of Toowoomba. The local map we had obtained from the caravan park was a bit 'artists impression thereof' so we had a bit of trouble finding it, but eventually we tracked it down. The reserve is only 10 hectares, so the walking trail wasn't particularly long, but we did a fairly sharp climb up each of two rocky peaks, being the remains of ancient volcanic plugs, to get a pleasant view of the surrounding rich Darling Downs farmland.

On Easter Monday we ventured south east to the Goomburra area of Main Range National Park. The 35 km access road was fairly narrow and we had to pull over every few seconds to pass the steady stream of campers, trailers, caravans and cars that were heading out so they could go back to work the next day (ha ha!). We chose to do a 6.5 km walk called 'The Cascades', which started out on an easy wheelchair friendly track before veering off to follow a creek upstream. What we hadn't twigged from the park brochure was that the walk didn't just follow the creek, it criss-crossed it at least a dozen times, and none of the crossings had a bridge. At first John managed to pick his way across strategic stones at each crossing, and Wendy, who is far less nimble, took off her shoes and socks and waded across. However, at about the third or fourth crossing John slipped off one of the rocks and went into the water up to his ankles, and Wendy got sick of stopping for 10 minutes every 50 metres, so after that we sacrificed our footwear and struggled across as best we could. The current was quite strong so even allowing for wet shoes we still had to cross carefully or risk being swept off our feet - wet shoes are one thing, wet clothes, camera and sandwiches are quite another! Our troubles didn't finish with the creek crossings, at one particularly muddy patch of the track Wendy tried to go around the bad bit and brushed through a nettle patch, ending up with painful nettle stings on her arms and legs. All in all the walk took us well over 3 hours to complete, which is an extraordinary amount of time for the distance. By the end we were wet, dirty and exhausted, and not even vaguely interested in the short walks to the nearby lookouts we had originally planned!

Apart from the walks we also played in the Easter tournament at the Toowoomba Golf Club, but neither of us did any better than last year. At least it meant we didn't have to stay for presentations!