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Published: December 10th 2007
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Leaving Toowoomba early in the morning southwards, we first reached Warwick city, where we stopped for taking photos of the beautiful church there; we also recognized that there are also ALDI supermarkets in Australia, and we encountered a pretty stylish car at the gas station (that was filled up with gas through its number plate... crazy); after leaving Warwick, the New-England highway looked like never ending on the horizon... for many kilometres there was no bend or curve in the highway, and signs next to the road signalled to make rests: "arrive alive", "survive your drive", or "rest or R.I.P"; when we passed Stanthorpe, after some few kilometres we reached Girraween national-park on some hot and sunny forenoon; no rangers were there for further information, so we decided to put some sunscreen on , and to conquer "the pyramids" ourselves ;but on the way to it, we first had to pass some streams, and after that we saw some huge cracked boulders; leaving the boulders behind, we explored "the pyramids": first on stairs, and then onwards without stairs on pure rocks! on the picture, the mountain looks pretty nice, but in reality...huhuhuh! smooth and slippery to some extent, like Uluru; after
reaching the part of the mountain, where the stairs ended, and one had to climb on without any artificial steps, I decided not to go further, as I wore wrong shoes and as I was not used to this kind of adventure; Robert nevertheless went on to the summit; shortly after I decided to wait for Robert, and he went on, some huge shower came quickly nearer, and I had to search for some huge rock where I could stand underneath; the whole mountain got pretty slippery, and I got really worried about Robert, as i could not see him any longer; fortunately, shortly after the rain finished, he again appeared, with some grin on his face... crazy guy! (nothing more to say); back at the streams near our departure for the walk, Robert further checked out his new camera! great digital cam (look: some pictures on my blog are made with his cam... i am sure you can find the difference!); after this, we drove to a nearby waterhole; on the way to it, we had a very close (ca. 50cm next to my foot) and scary encounter with a (probably partly toxic) snake... afterwards we identified the snake
with the aid of a book as either being a "black whip snake", or a "yellow-faced whip snake"...on our way back, we stopped at the tourist-centre of Stanthorpe, because we were searching for some POI in this wine-region, and Robert found a newspaper article of a snake attack in Girraween just the day before.... hmmmm... scary^2!!! the volunteers of the visitor/tourist-info centres were always very friendly and helpful!; there I bought some stuff for my parents for Xmas; afterwards, equipped with 2 ideas where we wanted to go, I again seized the steering wheel of the car, and we headed to a strawberry farm, where we enjoyed some delicious home-made ice-cream; afterwards we searched for an opportunity for wine-probing, but we reached the place only a little too late... they had already closed.... at a gas-station I asked the clerk, whether he knew some place, that would still be open, and he gave his friend not far away a quick phone-call, and the guy opened the wine-probing for an additionally half hour, so Robert and I could enjoy some very good white (Shiraz, Chardonnay,...) and red wine ... I personally liked the white wine more. Afterwards I bought 2 bottles,
left_toowoomba_behind
on our way to warwick whereat we finished the red one the day before Robert went on for his backpacking trip and left Toowoomba behind; when we drove home to Toowoomba it was already dark outside, and while reaching the suburbs of Toowoomba , we recognized, that there was some Xmas party (at at funeral church) going on... thus, we also threw ourselves into it; the festival was all about lights!.. people were (as always) very friendly, and we soon had to try some sausages, tea, etc... an "acapella" group singing there Christmas carols made my day.... they also gave us some hints for the pub we afterwards joined: "Mc Fibbers". Unfortunately none of the other house mates joined us there, but Robert finally got his Guiness beer with some special shamrock on the yeast of it, and he was happy ;-)
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Chris
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Nice pictures
Hallo Bernie, klasse Bilder. Viele Grüße Chris