Two-lips in Toowoomba

Spring has sprung again here in the southern hemisphere, and how better to see Mother Nature in all her petal blooming glory than to wend the wagons west to Toowoomba, which we did with gusto last weekend.  We were last mesmerised there by spring's multicoloured floral fest some two years ago, having missed last year's annual Carnival of Flowers (at this popular inland city and gateway to the Darling Downs).  This was due to a trip to Australia's Red Centre and the 'rocks that rock' (you may have missed my posts on the Red Centre here: the-red-centre-rocks and uber-camel-at-uluru).  

A few weeks ago, the Brisbane weather had already started to turn a comfortable T-shirt and shorts, warmish to hot, undoubtedly soon to become stifling hot and stickily humid in a few more weeks. Toowoomba, perched high on an escarpment above the plains below, was also well into the season of awakening, although this popular inland escape is always a few degrees cooler at this time of year than on the south-west Queensland coastal area, less than two hours drive away. 

Some of you may remember my post from Toowoomba's Carnival of flowers in Spring 2018, at this link, floral-fest-for-the-inner-west, with its theme of the XXI Commonwealth Games.  By comparing my previous post photos (from back then) with those from last weekend (in this current post), you can clearly see how well the locals pursue and sustain their floral art as the years roll by.

Due to the advent of COVID-19, things were slightly different this year, with no formal competition for the myriads of privately owned house gardens, although the various inner and outer suburbs were nonetheless resplendent in their enforced particularly private tributes to the spring sparkle of nature, all the more so, it might seem, from the lack of authorised and ritualistic assessment.  Yet we were able to visit and jaw-drop at two residential owned gardens, the owners of which mastered the local Council's invariably obscure or even ambiguous COVID restrictions to permit visitors into their magical domain.

The first was at Neil Street, where the owner had only been in residence for 18 months, virtually starting her garden from scratch in that short space of time.  We were treated to a dazzling display of poppies (first collage below); assorted flowering vegetables, including ornamental kale (middle collage below); and a battalion of busy buzzing bees, freely flitting from nectar laden bloom to bloom (bottom collage).

On to Burke Street where the other open residence greeted us with an amazing array of colourful blooms, decorating the perimeter of the lawns and walkways (see collage below) ... 

and, in contrast, scenes of mysterious rainforest-copycat blossoms, partly hidden (collage below) in the shade of various luxuriously foliaged small trees.

The large formal public gardens were next and proved to be as show-stopping as ever. First we delighted in the wonders of Laurel Bank Park, with its now famous display of assorted tree blossoms.

We were also excited to see that the two dimensional 'athletes' from the Commonwealth Games display of 2018 were out training on their cardboard bikes and no doubt on a racing high from the stimulating scent of their 'track' blooms. Although Toowoomba is some 150 km from the coast, we were nevertheless tickled to see a random surf swimmer powering parallel to the petal paved shoreline with its breaking floral waves. Just as well she looked fit, as the lifesaver appeared to have deserted his or her post on the beach.

So many colours were on display throughout the park, but it was refreshing to see a beautifully blended bounty of digitalis or foxgloves (collage below).

Then we were off to our final stop for the day at the magnificent Queens Park Gardens.  This is a massive park for the centre of a city, with rolling lawns, pristine manicured hedges and huge indigenous trees, such as a large selection of bunya pines (for more on the 'bunya bunya' see my previous post when we visited the nearby Bunya Mountains, pine-imposter-with-massive-nuts-tends ).  

But today we were here for the festival of flowers, and Queens Park certainly didn't disappoint.  There were plentiful posies of pansies from which to pick (but not literally) ...

... then abundant antirrhinum below (more commonly known as snapdragons).

There were all types of daisies, poppies, decorative parsley and kale and multitudes of flowering pants and blooms we couldn't name, but we were eventually brought back to familiarity before being instantly transformed to the Netherlands, with therapeutic tall trails of tulips, guaranteed to bring a flower lover's two lips together in Toowoomba ... not to taste the lips of companion floral admirers (thanks to the tedious COVID restrictions), but to whistle at the overwhelming magnificence of it all ... the town, the people, the splendid weather and the tribute to the uplifting potential of blooms that is Toowoomba's Carnival of Flowers.

Bye for now, Toowoomba.  See ya next year.

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When not researching the weird or the wonderful, the comical or the cultured, the sinful or the serious, I chase my creative side, the results of which can be seen as selected photographs of my travels on my website at:

http://ken-boddie.squarespace.com

The author of the above, Ken Boddie, besides being a sometime poet and occasional writer, is an enthusiastic photographer, rarely leisure-travelling without his Canon, and loves to interact with other like-minded people with diverse interests.

Ken's three day work week (part time commitment) as a consulting engineer allows him to follow his photography interests, and to plan trips to an ever increasing list of countries and places of scenic beauty and cultural diversity.