Our time in Toowoomba is coming to an end and we are heading off to Crows Nest NP about 50 km to the north for a couple of days. After a slow get away (we always seem to have slow get aways for some reason) we have found ourselves calling into a couple of suburban gardens that are open to the public. They are at Highfields, about 15 km north on the way to Crows Nest NP, in the same street a couple of blocks apart. The houses here are on quite large blocks ideally suited to sprawling sorts of gardens. Anyway, these two have totally different sorts of gardens.

House A has a predominance of bush type layout, all sorts of natives haphazardly planted here and there, lots of blooms and pieces of stuff lying around the garden, old wheel barrows, animals made out of old garden tools etc. Fascinating place to wander around.

House B was a more classical sort of layout, with defined garden beds and edgings. Still plenty of natives but a greater use of spring flowering annuals. Very green grass defining the spaces between the beds. We liked both of them, oodles of work though!

Finally departed and headed for the NP where we set up camp in a very nice spot. Fire pit beside the van, plenty of room to spread out. We are going to head back from here to Toowoomba for the Grand Central Floral Parade, it will just be for the morning then back here to recover!

The parade was indeed a great colourful pageant. The theme was ‘butterflies’. Floats were pretty good. It was an interesting dynamic of the typical country sort of thing, local community groups, major employers, sports clubs and schools. Added to this were the pipe bands, drum bands and various combinations of these. Army band.

Interspersed were the various ethnic groups putting on a great colourful enthusiastic performance; Indians, Chinese, Thai, Vietnamese, Muslim, Sikh. This parade has been going on for donkey’s years. It would have looked different back in the 1960’s.

Now back to Brisbane. That melon festival at Chinchilla might be a good place to head next!