The Toowoomba Carnival of Flowers is held in September, and generally runs for ten days at the end of the month.
We visited the Laurel Bank Park, where there are beds of many colorful flowers,
open spaces,
statues,
an area set aside for not only tulips but a model windmill
and quite a number of hedge sculptures
There was also the opportunity to go on a morning or afternoon garden tour which visited a number of private gardens of residences in Toowoomba.
My phone, being smart and all, has been creating a notification that tells me I have some memories stored on it for this day a year ago, or two years, or many years.
The pictures it is showing are of our trip to China a few years ago.
Not much chance of going back, and, back then, neither of us could imagine that everything that has happened in the last two years could happen.
But, it did.
And one of the effects of those events is no more overseas travel whilst COVIS is still alive and kicking.
No travel of any sort can be contrmplated at the moment with the Omicron variant is running almost rampant. We can’t even fly to another state because such close proximity to someone with it, fully vaccinated or not, would be dangerous for my state of health which is compromised.
Travel, of course, is the main escape, where we can get away from our daily lives, and go somewhere quite different from where we live and experience a different world. The people, the food, the sights.
What is probably more significant is that we might not be able to go away again, now it’s been assumed there is no cure for the virus, just the varying degrees of seriousness. I for one, would not want to risk catching it in another country, simply because of the medical expenses, and the chances are that travel insurance will not cover me for the Coronavirus because of my compromised immune system. We all know insurance companies love to find loopholes to not pay.
And no cover means no travel, even if you are able to.
So, it means that any travel we will be doing, when we can, will be in our own country when it is safe to do so. So too for New Zealand, and we may be able to travel there.
One day.
Until then, my smartphone is going to keep sending me gentle reminders of what it was like in another lifetime.
It was topical some years ago because of the Commonwealth Games, but we have been to the Gold Coast on many occasions and nearly always stayed at the Hilton.
Nearly all of the photos here are taken from floor 13 through to 45, some close to the ocean, others facing north, and west, towards the hinterland.
Below is one of the main beaches, where the typical sun, sand, and surf pretty well sums it up. Been ion the water a few times myself, and it is amazing how warm it can be on some days, and how cold it can be on others.
And a surfer’s paradise it sure is!
At the bottom, the start of the shopping centers and eateries. The is more different types of food there that can be counted on the fingers and toes together.
The beach just to the north, and where the market stalls set up at night.
Further north, through the highrises, and far, far into the distance towards Brisbane.
North, again, looking up Cavill Avenue.
South, showing highrises and the Q Tower.
South, taken from the Q Tower, the coastline to Coolangatta dotted with high rise apartment blocks.
The two towers behind the Grand Chancellor, are the twin towers of the Hilton Hotel.
From the Q Tower, looking towards the canal residential precinct.
Yes, we were looking for whales, no we didn’t see any. The ocean, though, was unusually calm.
A story called “Mistaken Identity”
…
How many of us have skeletons in the closet that we know nothing about? The skeletons we know about generally stay there, but those we do not, well, they have a habit of coming out of left field when we least expect it.
In this case, when you see your photo on a TV screen with the accompanying text that says you are wanted by every law enforcement agency in Europe, you’re in a state of shock, only to be compounded by those same police, armed and menacing, kicking the door down.
I’d been thinking about this premise for a while after I discovered my mother had a boyfriend before she married my father, a boyfriend who was, by all accounts, the man who was the love of her life.
Then, in terms of coming up with an idea for a story, what if she had a child by him that we didn’t know about, which might mean I had a half brother or sister I knew nothing about. It’s not an uncommon occurrence from what I’ve been researching.
There are many ways of putting a spin on this story.
Then, in the back of my mind, I remembered a story an acquaintance at work was once telling us over morning tea, that a friend of a friend had a mother who had a twin sister and that each of the sisters had a son by the same father, without each knowing of the father’s actions, both growing up without the other having any knowledge of their half brother, only to meet by accident on the other side of the world.
It was an encounter that in the scheme of things might never have happened, and each would have remained oblivious of the other.
For one sister, the relationship was over before she discovered she was pregnant, and therefore had not told the man he was a father. It was no surprise the relationship foundered when she discovered he was also having a relationship with her sister, a discovery that caused her to cut all ties with both of them and never speak to either from that day.
It’s a story with more twists and turns than a country lane!
And a great idea for a story.
That story is called ‘Mistaken Identity’.
Read an extract tomorrow.
Sometimes it’s not about the destination, but getting there, because sometimes the destination is not what you were expecting.
I have had some experience it staying in iconic guest houses, both here and overseas, and I guess those stays spoiled this one. I have a preference for old, creaky but warm and inviting old mansions mostly built around the early 1900s.
That was what I was expecting this time too, given what I’d read.
The road, from the turn-off from the Greenlee cottages, is narrow, winding, and not one you can go faster than 40ks. Buses and trucks are restricted to 20kph, but as you get further into the mountains, it’s difficult to see how they can get along the road at all.
It’s difficult enough in a mid-size SUV.
But, in all fairness, these are the sort of roads that nearly always lead to that mountaintop retreat.
At times the road is so narrow that you wonder how trucks and buses could get between the trees, because the close you get to the guest house, the narrower the road. And, at times, the car has to scrape by the overhanging branches, especially when having to make way for oncoming traffic.
The road is definitely not wide enough for two cars, and there are a lot of points where you can pull off to the side to let them pass.
It is tarred, but being in the middle of a dense tropical forest, it’s pitted and rutted, and very uneven. There is not one moment where can relax, or take your eyes off the road, as some of us do, to take in the surrounding scenery.
But, whilst most of it looks the same, it’s certainly not boring, and every now and then you break out of the darkness into a clearing. And, sometimes a house.
Yes, people do live on the side of a mountain, and, just to be clear, their view, every morning, from the back verandah must be spectacular
At the end of the three-quarters of an hour drive, we emerge onto a mountain top, and what is O’Reilly’s guest house, though, after a more investigative look around, the guests stay in motel-like rooms.
There is an old wooden structure, but if this is the original guest house, it doesn’t look like people stay there anymore.
But, it’s not the accommodation the people come here for, it’s the endless bush walks. Of course, there’s other stuff there, but it’s more about communing with nature, discovering the wildlife, and taking in the fresh country air.
For those who are wondering what this is a photograph of, it is a tree bordered stream that runs along a long valley that runs from outside Canungra, in Queensland, to the Lamington National Park.
It’s near a place we like to stay for a few days when we want to get away from everything, and I mean everything. There is no television, and cell phone reception is awful if not non existent.
So, you can see the benefits.
Sitting at the table on the veranda overlooking the fields, and this stream, you have time to just think, or not, about what it might have been like before the settlers came.
What is was like when the explorers we seeking new places to live, and they chanced upon this valley. It it was me back then, I would have followed the stream.
But, as for a story…
I have read a great many stories for the explorers of this country, and the hazardous nature of their treks.
What seemed to be the most common theme was crossing from south to north, that is from Melbourne to the Northern most tip of Queensland, or from Adelaide to the Northern Territory. In both cases they would have to traverse a very dry, very hot outback where the sight of a stream, or river, like above, would have been very welcome.
For some, it became an impossible quest, and stuck in the desert, they eventually perished. That in itself, the trials and tribulations of an early explorer would make a great story.
Australia is a very fertile country around the coastal regions, but one you start venturing inland, it is dry, dusty and almost uninhabitable. Unless there’s water from rivers, streams, or underground, or mining settlements, there is very little else to see.
The exceptions to this are Uluru and Kakadu National Park, in the Northern Territory, Shark Bay and The Pinnacles in Western Australia, MacKenzie Falls in Victoria, The Simpson Desert, the Boodjamulla (Lawn Hill) National Park, and the Carnarvon Gorge in Queensland, to name a few.
One day I might get to see them.
The course of plane travel can run like clockwork, or rapidly come apart at the seems.
Every time you go to the airport, it can become an adventure. Checking in, battling the airline’s kiosk, printing and attaching bag labels, going to bag drop, remembering that every airline does it differently.
Hong Kong airport is huge and there are endless boarding gates. Being dropped off in the zone that belongs to the airline you’re flying is simple. The next step is to find the aisle letter where your flight is checking in and then do the automated boarding pass and baggage label.
If it’s international travel which it is today, there’s the added stress of negotiating immigration and the duty-free stores. We followed the rules, got there early, had the usual problems at the kiosk requiring the assistance of two Cathay Pacific staff, and finally made it to the initial departure concourse.
Next, there’s the temptation of overpriced airport food if you’re hungry which we are not. But we have a McCafe coffee to satisfy a caffeine fix before the flight.
The shops are all expensive at the initial departure concourse, so we decide to see if there are other shops near our departure gate. To get to our particular departure gate we descend to the train and get off at the 40-80 station. It’s a short journey, and once back up on the concourse level we find a collection of more affordable shops where we buy every man and his dog a selection of sweets.
From there it’s a couple of travellators, which sounds rediculously short, but are, in reality, very, very long, to our gate and we get there ten minutes before boarding is supposed to commence.
Today we are traveling on an Airbus A350-900, a relatively new plane so you would think there couldn’t be anything wrong with it. We had the same plane coming to Hong Kong and was, literally, plain sailing.
We find a seat in the gate lounge and wait along with everyone else. I’m still surprised at the number of able-bodied people who take the disabled seats for the sake of being closer to the start of the line and worse was a woman who not only took up one of the seats but also another for her cabin baggage which was extensive.
Boarding starts late, and routinely for the first and business, and disabled passengers. The rest now start to line up in the economy line. Some people haven’t moved, perhaps they know something we don’t.
We eventually join the line and go through initial formalities while waiting. And waiting. As the minute’s tick by nothing is happening other than what appears to be growing consternation by the gate staff. The tipping point for immediate concern is when the previously boarded passengers begin to come back through the boarding gate.
One of those who had been on board came our way and said there was a problem with the plane. They were told it was due to technical difficulties the official non-scary description for your plane Is broken. Because of consternation among the queued economy passengers, there was an official announcement that advised of the technical difficulties, and boarding would be delayed.
We all sit back down, but this time there were a number of disabled and elderly people who needed seats, and our able-bodied lady and her baggage didn’t move. Shame on her. We are lucky that where we were in the waiting line it was adjacent to nearby seats putting us closer to the head of the line when it reformed.
Now we were able to watch the other passengers jockeying for position to race to be first in the economy class boarding queue the second time around. I think they realize they have the same seat if they are at the front of the line or the back. Because we were all asked to sit down, those at the front of the queue would now find themselves at the end if they’d decided to sit and wait.
After a delay of about an hour and a half, we are finally boarding. The worst aspect of this delay is losing our slot in the departures and I’m guessing this was going to have an effect on our actual takeoff time. It appears to be the case. Boarding does not take very long and shortly after the doors are closed we’re pushing back from the gate.
From there, it becomes a chess game when we get a slot. We are in a queue of planes waiting their turn, and before the main runway planes are separated into two queues, and we are in the second. Since we are the only one, I suspect we’re in the delayed take-off queue, and sit watching four or so other planes take off before we finally get on the runway.
All around us, planes seem to be going by and taking off while we wait, and wait, and wait…
On the plane, we discover one of the toilets is out of action so perhaps that was the technical difficulty. It’s not full so one toilet down will have little effect.
Leaving in the early afternoon will get us into Brisbane late at night. It was meant to be around 11 pm, but with the delays, and possibly making up time in flight, it will now be after midnight when we arrive. Fortunately, we have a 24-hour airport.
The flight from HongKong to Brisbane is without event. Lunch after takeoff, then a few hours later, an hour or so before landing, we have dinner. Both of us are not hungry.
We land after midnight, tired but glad to be home. I guess it could have been worse.
The Toowoomba Carnival of Flowers is held in September, and generally runs for ten days at the end of the month.
We visited the Laurel Bank Park, where there are beds of many colorful flowers,
open spaces,
statues,
an area set aside for not only tulips but a model windmill
and quite a number of hedge sculptures
There was also the opportunity to go on a morning or afternoon garden tour which visited a number of private gardens of residences in Toowoomba.
My phone, being smart and all, has been creating a notification that tells me I have some memories stored on it for this day a year ago, or two years, or many years.
The pictures it is showing are of our trip to China a few years ago.
Not much chance of going back, and, back then, neither of us could imagine that everything that has happened in the last two years could happen.
But, it did.
And one of the effects of those events is no more overseas travel whilst COVIS is still alive and kicking.
No travel of any sort can be contrmplated at the moment with the Omicron variant is running almost rampant. We can’t even fly to another state because such close proximity to someone with it, fully vaccinated or not, would be dangerous for my state of health which is compromised.
Travel, of course, is the main escape, where we can get away from our daily lives, and go somewhere quite different from where we live and experience a different world. The people, the food, the sights.
What is probably more significant is that we might not be able to go away again, now it’s been assumed there is no cure for the virus, just the varying degrees of seriousness. I for one, would not want to risk catching it in another country, simply because of the medical expenses, and the chances are that travel insurance will not cover me for the Coronavirus because of my compromised immune system. We all know insurance companies love to find loopholes to not pay.
And no cover means no travel, even if you are able to.
So, it means that any travel we will be doing, when we can, will be in our own country when it is safe to do so. So too for New Zealand, and we may be able to travel there.
One day.
Until then, my smartphone is going to keep sending me gentle reminders of what it was like in another lifetime.
The course of plane travel can run like clockwork, or rapidly come apart at the seems.
Every time you go to the airport, it can become an adventure. Checking in, battling the airline’s kiosk, printing and attaching bag labels, going to bag drop, remembering that every airline does it differently.
Hong Kong airport is huge and there are endless boarding gates. Being dropped off in the zone that belongs to the airline you’re flying is simple. The next step is to find the aisle letter where your flight is checking in and then do the automated boarding pass and baggage label.
If it’s international travel which it is today, there’s the added stress of negotiating immigration and the duty-free stores. We followed the rules, got there early, had the usual problems at the kiosk requiring the assistance of two Cathay Pacific staff, and finally made it to the initial departure concourse.
Next, there’s the temptation of overpriced airport food if you’re hungry which we are not. But we have a McCafe coffee to satisfy a caffeine fix before the flight.
The shops are all expensive at the initial departure concourse, so we decide to see if there are other shops near our departure gate. To get to our particular departure gate we descend to the train and get off at the 40-80 station. It’s a short journey, and once back up on the concourse level we find a collection of more affordable shops where we buy every man and his dog a selection of sweets.
From there it’s a couple of travellators, which sounds rediculously short, but are, in reality, very, very long, to our gate and we get there ten minutes before boarding is supposed to commence.
Today we are traveling on an Airbus A350-900, a relatively new plane so you would think there couldn’t be anything wrong with it. We had the same plane coming to Hong Kong and was, literally, plain sailing.
We find a seat in the gate lounge and wait along with everyone else. I’m still surprised at the number of able-bodied people who take the disabled seats for the sake of being closer to the start of the line and worse was a woman who not only took up one of the seats but also another for her cabin baggage which was extensive.
Boarding starts late, and routinely for the first and business, and disabled passengers. The rest now start to line up in the economy line. Some people haven’t moved, perhaps they know something we don’t.
We eventually join the line and go through initial formalities while waiting. And waiting. As the minute’s tick by nothing is happening other than what appears to be growing consternation by the gate staff. The tipping point for immediate concern is when the previously boarded passengers begin to come back through the boarding gate.
One of those who had been on board came our way and said there was a problem with the plane. They were told it was due to technical difficulties the official non-scary description for your plane Is broken. Because of consternation among the queued economy passengers, there was an official announcement that advised of the technical difficulties, and boarding would be delayed.
We all sit back down, but this time there were a number of disabled and elderly people who needed seats, and our able-bodied lady and her baggage didn’t move. Shame on her. We are lucky that where we were in the waiting line it was adjacent to nearby seats putting us closer to the head of the line when it reformed.
Now we were able to watch the other passengers jockeying for position to race to be first in the economy class boarding queue the second time around. I think they realize they have the same seat if they are at the front of the line or the back. Because we were all asked to sit down, those at the front of the queue would now find themselves at the end if they’d decided to sit and wait.
After a delay of about an hour and a half, we are finally boarding. The worst aspect of this delay is losing our slot in the departures and I’m guessing this was going to have an effect on our actual takeoff time. It appears to be the case. Boarding does not take very long and shortly after the doors are closed we’re pushing back from the gate.
From there, it becomes a chess game when we get a slot. We are in a queue of planes waiting their turn, and before the main runway planes are separated into two queues, and we are in the second. Since we are the only one, I suspect we’re in the delayed take-off queue, and sit watching four or so other planes take off before we finally get on the runway.
All around us, planes seem to be going by and taking off while we wait, and wait, and wait…
On the plane, we discover one of the toilets is out of action so perhaps that was the technical difficulty. It’s not full so one toilet down will have little effect.
Leaving in the early afternoon will get us into Brisbane late at night. It was meant to be around 11 pm, but with the delays, and possibly making up time in flight, it will now be after midnight when we arrive. Fortunately, we have a 24-hour airport.
The flight from HongKong to Brisbane is without event. Lunch after takeoff, then a few hours later, an hour or so before landing, we have dinner. Both of us are not hungry.
We land after midnight, tired but glad to be home. I guess it could have been worse.
