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16th Nov 2005
Mount Coot-tha and Socceroos
Wednesday, 16th November, 2005
Breakfast needed to be quite early this morning due to the need to move the car from the temporary parking space at the back of Annie’s, so we were getting our share of coffee, tea and toast by 7.30. An interesting collection of people staying here from a rather large gentleman … possibly a sales rep, who had two black eyes to Japanese, German, Dutch along with a sprinkling of Aussies and Brits.
Shifted the car as one of the lady executives next door arrived to claim her reserved parking place and we were underway by about 8.30.
Headed out of town for my 10 o’clock meeting to Mount Coot-tha (Kuta) (place of the wild honey) and had a great overview of the city. Old postcards incorporated in the interpretation and a nice sinuous design across the very large patio reflecting the course of the river.
Dropped down to the Herbarium at the back of 10 and managed to find a shady spot to park the car. Met with Rod Fensham who’s a botanist using some of the original survey records to link into vintage photographs … to compare with contemporary pictures … in order to determine changes in vegetation cover. A useful hour or so spent with Rod and collected a few references in the form of scientific papers. Met Anne to wander around the gardens a little bit, after having a breakfast smoothie at the cafe. Masses of school children in the garden today all hurtling around the place and forming long blue crocodiles on the paths and a blue tablecloth across the lawn in front of us. A few water dragons sunned themselves by the long pond and we passed up by wedding lawn No 2 and back to the car.
The journey from Coot-tha along to Toowoomba was most notable for the luxuriant, rich green which all the leaves and grass seemed to be. Much of it looked very reminiscent of parts of Scotland and it was only the occasional garden palm tree, which gave it away.
We headed straight for the tourist information centre, who were incredibly helpful in providing and explaining the maps and even taking the step of narrowing down the field of potential motels for us.
We took a run just up the road to check out Picnic Point an overlook poised on the edge of the Great Divide at the top edge of Toowoomba and settled in down to take in the sun and the view. Back down the hill we checked into the Sun Garden Motel joining a whole mob of jobbing electricians and builders who enjoying the cheap rate as well. Luckily, we got the last room and having dumped the bags went a couple of blocks into the centre of town to check out some of the sites. We were at the end of the day and most places were just beginning to slam their doors but we had a fairly good overview. Toowoomba may just about be the size of Inverness but is a lively, more rural city. The public art is interesting and well maintained. There are a lot of buildings around with character and a general buzz about the place, which isn’t threatening.
As a final look for the day, we went along to the State Rose Garden, which at times must be beautiful. Just now, Toowoomba, known as the Garden City is suffering from drought and there simply isn’t the water to maintain the gardens and flowers they might normally expect to have on show at this time of year.
There were lines of Royal Palms around the rosebeds, each the venue of a lot of roosting birds - possibly galahs – slightly rosy pink underneath, which the setting sun accentuated 'til they looked like red macaws flying fast in pairs and small groups and sitting on the palm fronts.
Back at the motel I phoned Doug, my Toowoomba contact in order to make arrangements for the next couple of days and then we followed the recommendation both of the tourist office and the motel receptionist and walked across to the City Golf Club for dinner. This is the night that the Socceroos, the Aussie Soccer team were playing Uruguay for as place in the world cup finals … and here at the golf club the great and the good were assembled in front of a few screens getting very involved in the action. We left at full time and wandered back along in the dark in time to catch extra time and as it transpired, a penalty shoot-out. Australia won in the end with some remarkable saves from their goalkeeper and a bad miss from one of the South Americans.
The night shift departed from the motel, but once they’d gone it was a peaceful berth for the night.
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