Aus 6 Allora to Toowoomba

We left Brisbane and headed inland for Allora where we were warned of chilly winter temperatures and the need to bring out the winter togs. Away from the coast we gained altitude through windy mountainous roads. Jim particularly liked the Australian way of indicating the safe speed at which to take each approaching bend. Indeed we actually thought this was really helpful.

Once we emerged onto the higher plains we passed through more countryside, farmland and cattle. The farm families were often quite long distances away from neighbours or indeed small towns to top up on provisions. A lonely life.

Allora is on the Darling Downs in south-eastern Queensland, Australia, 160 kilometres (99 mi) by road south-west of the state capital, Brisbane.[4] The town is located on the New England Highwaybetween Warwick and Toowoomba.

We had been invited to stop over with Kym and John Lee Lewis, also distant cousins, who had settled in this small rural town of Allora in the Southern Downs region of Queensland.  After retiring as a Quantas pilot John purchased a small Drought master cattle farm in Allora. He is now retired from the cattle but busy with so many things in rural Allora. One day a week working in the local post office shown below was enough for Kym to keep abreast of the local goss.

Allora itself had a population of 1,200. And although really small it seemed to have a lot going on. There was a golf course, tennis courts, schools, a lovely park and in common with many rural settlements, a thriving Showground offering stopover parking but also acted as a hub for a range of rural events. This weekend there were activities with horses and young people were being judged on some kind of dressage.

Our retired host and his friends had spent many hours setting things up for the weekends activities. He quipped that shifting the rubbish bins in the Showground was the only work he, a retired Quantas pilot, and his friend, a retired Surgeon, could get now!

We wandered from the Showground to the small town centre and almost every building was a heritage building. These wooden houses were largely raised on thick wooden posts. We wondered if this was to help in the event of flooding, but we were told it was more about ventilation.

We learned extremes of temperature here were not strangers. When we last visited Allora five years earlier, it had been suffering from many years of drought and the fields had been very parched. We had been taken to see parched pastures supporting Charollais cows.

But this period had been followed by a bout of serious floods and the beautiful properties that we passed had been badly damaged when the sleepy creek alongside the town had became a raging torrent. Our hosts told us that in this period they had been told one night to vacate their property and seek higher ground! What higher ground in this very flat town? Fortunately the floods did not reach them.

One former Allora resident that is well known and commemorated is P L Travers, the author of Mary Poppins.

On the edge of the park was a friendly cafe where we stopped for coffee. In the corner outside, an elderly mum wrapped in a blanket was being entertained by her son serenading her with his guitar and her favourite songs - mine too. It was lovely.

Our evening meal was in the Railway Hotel. Here you could have a beer or a meal. It was hugely popular with all ages, even though the railway had long since ceased to fetch up in Allora. Although there are Allora residents with access to a flat or relatives in Brisbane, for many the quiet rural life hits all the spots.

22 June 2024

We were told that temperatures would be plunging to minus six overnight. So we piled on the layers in the morning before setting off and waved goodbye to our hosts as we set off towards Toowoomba, the oldest inland town in Queensland. With a population of over 100,000, it was definitely a town with, out of town shopping and busy crisscrossing roads. It is only second to Canberra as the largest inland town in Australia. It is home to many parks and gardens and surrounded by farms growing sunflowers - not in winter! Its aboriginal and Torres Strait Island population was under 5% of the total, making indigenous people very invisible here, as in many places we have been so far on this journey. I think this percentage is pretty on a par with many other places in Australia.

It was not long into the day, before the warm layers of clothing were jetissoned and by the time we had arrived in the centre of Toowoomba and the beautiful Queens Park we would not have been surprised to see sunbathers!

This large green grassy tree lined park was busy with families enjoying the facilities. We went in search of a cannon which had been built in Woolwich and had been wheeled onto a boat, and was used by the Queenslanders ( 1860’s), to patrol the waters to the North in the event of invasions from Papua New Guinea.

The memorial commemorates a well known resident of Toowoomba who accidentally drowned in Sydney Harbour many years earlier. The top of the obelisk formally held a bell, which has fallen off!

We also came across a plaque commemorating an early pioneer of the rights of working people, Emma Miller. She had arrived in Brisbane in 1897 at the age of 40 and campaigned tirelessly to improve the conditions of the poor in Queensland.

We had to leave Toowoomba and keep moving North West through Queensland. We stopped overnight in Chinchilla famous for its big melon!

The most amazing thing occurred whilst in Chinchilla. There was a mass migration of birds that flew overhead and, I kid you not, that there were millions of parrot like birds which flew past for at least half an hour at dusk. 🤷‍♀️