St. George & Toowoomba

I decided to combine these two towns because it rained the whole time we were in Toowoomba so I don’t have much to say about it… But, we really liked St. George!

St. George

Due to the rain and floods, we had to stay a few more days in Lightning Ridge as the roads were flooded out. When we finally left, the road to St. George was mostly clear and the road only had minor flooding in a few spots.

When we got to the hotel, we saw a great indication that we were going to love this spot:

Unfortunately though, we never actually made it to the winery because while we were in St. George there was a COVID outbreak in Brisbane and all of Queensland went under further restrictions which meant some issues for the winery.

St. George is a town in Queensland on the Balonne river. In fact, there are a couple of rivers in the area and they use these to irrigate all the cotton (and other) crops that are grown in the area.

Jack Taylor Weir

The Jack Taylor Weir is right on the edge of town. St. George has a really nice walk along the river with playgrounds, exercise equipment and signs explaining the history of St. George. Since the river was at minor flood level, it really looked beautiful and the weir was gushing water. Amazing to think that only a couple of years ago this river was just a trickle. They have had some really big floods in this town and have a marker on the river walk with the flood levels during these floods.

The Dam, Irrigation and Cotton

Further north about 15 kms from St. George, there is a dam and the irrigation system starts from here. Some of the dam water is diverted off (and again at the Jack Taylor Weir and another local weir) and flows through an intricate irrigation system all over the region where they plant mostly cotton, but a few other crops as well.

It was interesting to see a cotton crop up close (first time for all of us!). I was surprised at how similar it is to a cotton ball you buy at the shop – I thought there was a lot more processing to that.

The Unique Egg

There is a really intersting musem & shop in the middle of town called The Unique Egg. This artist has been carving emu eggs for 60 years! He has carved them for several heads of state around the world and for special events like the Olympics.

There was quite a lot of interesting facts at the museum about how each egg is unique and there are 7 different shades of green in any egg, etc. After he carves them, he pours liquid glass into them and turns them into lights so you can see the carvings shine through. He also puts mirrors around the eggs so that you can see all sides.

Nindigully Pub

We took a little trip out of town one day to the Nindigully Pub – the oldest continually licensed pub in Queensland. The movie Paperback Hero was filmed here in 1999. There is nothing else in the town except the pub, but apparently once upon a time it was a coach interchange and had shops and a school. It is set out on a small river (also in flood). They are famous for the Road Train burger (we didn’t get this – the regular burger was already huge!). It was a great little pub in the middle of nowhere. They let you camp for free along the river too, but since the river was flooded, we only saw one person doing this.

We also took a walk along the river there. The sign in the photo below made me laugh… what bridge? Maybe it was recently taken out by the floods? (In case you can’t read it, it says “This old bridge is deemed unsafe to be used by motor vehicles, horses, cyclists and pedestrians”.)

Relaxation

I think what we enjoyed the most during our time in St. George was the peace and relaxation. The caravan park was surrounded by paddocks and had a heated swimming pool. We had a nice large spot just at the edge of the park on the paddocks and had enough room to set up our hammock. The sunrise was just over the paddock in front of us – beautiful! We had kangaroos hopping around one morning, but unfortunately, all my photos came out blurry.

On our last day in St. George, the Brisbane lockdown was lifted so we decided to continue on with our original plan and head to Brisbane for the school holidays (via Toowoomba).

Free Camping near Moree

On our way to Towoomba, we decided to stop near Moree and do some free camping. It was fantastic – the first time we’ve been able to have a campfire! We all really enjoyed it and the kids had fun exploring.

Toowoomba

As we drove into Toowoomba the next day, the storms started again. Since we were now in a big town (city?) with big shops, we drove straight to a shop and bought a new mattress. The one we had in the carvan was giving me a backache and doing a number on R’s hips (yes, he’s still recovering).

We stayed 5 days in Toowoomba and it absolutely poured the entire time! Our long Easter weekend was spent in the caravan… In fact, we didn’t leave the caravan much except to go shopping. However, one day we did go out to a museum – the Cobb & Co museum. Cobb & Co was the name of the coach bus service around Queensland and New South Wales from the 1850s till the 1930s. The museum holds several of the old coaches and wagons used during the time in the area.

The museum also had some other sections to it: a forge and workshop where they were still building coaches and horseshoes by hand, and a science center (which really didn’t fit in with the theme), and a small aboriginal museum explaining about the local indigenous people.

In general, we weren’t really that impressed with Toowoomba, but maybe it was the weather. It’s called the Garden City and there are tons of gardens and parks to explore, but we didn’t go to any of them due to the rain.

Finally, after 5 days of rainy weather, we headed off to Brisbane.