Another of our outings around Toowoomba was much more sobering. After talking to the man in the visitor centre about the floods in 2011 we went for a drive through the Lockyer Valley area. It is really beautiful, now, but when comparing what we saw to what we looked at on YouTube later of footage from the floods, I just cried. I think what it did was enable me to make the footage real. Watching it all on TV we do become so desensitised to the massive event that it was. It is just pictures. It doesn't mean anything. But when you can drive down the road that was washed away, when you can see where there used to be houses that were washed away in minutes with the occupants still in them, then it suddenly becomes so much more real. Now I watch footage and I know where it was taken, I can see for myself how no-one had anywhere to go. Now I drive through the intersection where a mother and son were washed away and I know what the flowers on the post are for. But it's not even just the major impacts of the floods that have become real, there is all the other stuff, the vastness of the area affected and the degree of damage caused all over the region.
On T's birthday we decided to go for another drive. It was T's pick which direction we would head and so north it was to a place called Crows Nest (just because the name sounded cool!). It was only about a 40 minute drive away. Crows Nest is a small town perched on the top of the great dividing range, like Toowoomba. There wasn't much to see or do so after a short play in the town centre park we decided to have our picnic lunch at the Crows Nest Conservation Park, where there was the promise of a hike to see some waterfalls. We had lunch in the picnic grounds with the company of a strange looking bush chook type bird who wanted a share of the spoils. The kids then did some rock hopping around on the banks of the creek that flowed through the park. Much to my dismay, when the spotted a random cow on the opposite bank T and E decided they would have to rock hop their way right across the creek to go and see the cow. In the mean time the cow had wandered away from site. I had my heart in my throat watching E head through head high grass and reeds towards where she thought T had gone, but in fact not going in the right direction, with a random cow somewhere around there and her not able to hear me calling out over the sound of the water over the rocks. I couldn't even try to cross myself as I had C with me and I didn't trust him not to try and cross too! Finally E found her way out onto the sandy bank and together with T they headed around the corner to find the cow. They found it! And from the look on their faces as they came running back, with many a glance over their shoulder, it would seem that the cow was just as interested in checking them out!! After lunch we completed the 3 km round trip hike to see the Crows Nest Falls. Hmm, it was a lovely hike but the falls themselves were a little disappointing. It was along this walk however that we got to see more of the widespread damage that the floods had caused. There were several paths that were now closed due to damage, rock falls, and unsafe edges. A large part of the park itself was now off limits as the granite rocks are too unstable and there had been several large rock falls in the near past.
T's birthday was finished off with our customary birthday person choice for dinner, and as expected it was off to the golden arches we went. I do hold hope that one day he will choose something else. One day.
We have been on a few drives around the town and district to have a look around and have found and tried out every playground in walking distance from the caravan parks. So, with that in mind and me being thoroughly playground-ed out, todays activity was to head to the city library to see what we could find. We had to beg and plead and get admin involved to try and get a membership as we have nothing we can show with a Queensland address, and thankfully the nice administration lady agreed that we could have one. Poor R looked like a fish out of water in the library. "It's not my kind of thing" were his words. The kids however thought it was pretty cool. The library has a cubby house, and much to C's delight, a fire truck to play in.
This afternoon, as is becoming the routine, the kids jumped into the pool for a swim. This park has a heated kids pool which is nice and shallow at one end, great for C, and quite deep at the other to allow for the curly waterslide. The kids were all a bit excited when the lady from the office came out to take some pictures of them for use on their website. E declared "I'll be famous!!".
Other than making some plans for upcoming bookings and planning some travel in September, that is our time in Toowoomba thus far. We are going to be taking off for about 4 weeks again in September as this is a quiet period at R's work so they are happy for him to take that time off and would love to see him come back again in October, and stay until Christmas! We haven't made any firm decisions as yet so will have to wait and see which way the wind takes us........
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