Thursday 11th August Today we decided to visit the Botanic Gardens which included the Hinkler Aviation Museum and Fairymead House. The Hinkler Museum was just amazing - Bert Hinkler was born in Bundaberg and was interested in flying from a very early age. He built (in his parents shed) and flew his first glider (on a Bundaberg beach) just a couple of years after the Wright Brothers did their first flight. In 1928 he flew solo from England to Bundaberg, which took 15 days. John is in the photo of a replica of the plane he did this flight in. He was a very clever man inventing many things but unfortunatley he died in a plane crash in 1933 aged 40yrs. I don't think we realise how many very clever pioneers we had in this country. ... read more

Saturday 30th July Had another great night at the carvan park with a sing a long with the words to songs on a big screen. One of the owners of the park, Brendon, with his daughter and wife helped with some of the singing. It was a little cool again so everyone only stayed until about 7.30 then back to the vans to get warm. Sunday 31st July Headed to Childers to check out the Multicultural festival and to see the pub John's brother Bill used to own. It was the Grand Hotel in the main street of Childers and now it is all trendy with a new front bar and polished floors etc and a trendy beer garden out the back - Bill would be very surprised. We stayed at this pub when we did ... read more

Monday 25th July This morning was very cold and misty (-1), the photos show the mist over the dam. But as the day unfolded it was actually quite warm and just beautiful. We headed into Kingaroy, called into the Information Centre and checked out the interesting museum about the peanut industry in the area. We did not know how peanuts were grown so it was very informative. The peanuts grow very well in the soil from the volcano from the Bunya Ranges (the soil is very red where it has been ploughed). So then we had to visit the Peanut Van and do a taste test which meant we had to buy 3 different bags of peanuts (Yum). We had lunch at the local RSL club which was very nice but not as cheap as we ... read more

Saturday 24th July Friday was shopping day - checked out the city and found all the major shopping centres including Myer. We booked an extra day so we could check out Rudds Pub in Tooth St, Nobby (yes it is a real street and town!!!!!). About 1/2 an hours drive from Toowoomba - crossed a lot of small creeks where we could see a lot of repair work after the January floods - we could imagine it would not take very much for these small creeks to flood so most of these roads would have been impassable. The township of Nobby was named after a railway worker whose nick name was Nobby, he married and lived in the town in the early days (don't know how Tooth St was named). We had lunch in the room ... read more

Saturday 16th July Woke up this morning to rain, it had lightly rained all night and the hard ground around the caravan had turned into a mud patch. Very messy packing up but headed off to Toowoomba. "Ken" our navigator took us right through the middle of a very busy town centre of Toowoomba but we found the Top Tourist Caravan Park and booked in for a week. ($167.40 for a week with TT disc). The park looks very nice and neat and right on a main road into town. Sunday 17th July Went for a walk up the road and found nearly any food outlets you could wish for with in walking distance as well as a large shopping centre (K Mart) and even an Aldi store. There is a lovey creek and park at ... read more