We had a very busy September this year, I was in Cairns for work the first week and so we didn’t try to go to the food and wine festival. Rachael was then in Melbourne visiting Lauren the following weekend when the parade was on, but I still rode in with the kids for it and they loved it. Was so much nicer riding in and not having to worry about parking with all the streets closed.
We didn’t go the food and wine festival this year, and I had a sprained ankle so we didn’t go to any prize gardens either. We did get to Laurel Bank and Queen’s Parks though.
It was great to go to be able to go to the food and wine festival again this year, after last year was cancelled and we had a newborn the year before that. Unfortunately they had to change the lineup last minute due to border closures, so it was mostly bands I’d already seen several times.
Lyra really liked the dinosaur theme at Laurel Bank Park this year.
We even went to the parade for probably the first time since the we moved here.
This was the first year since we moved to Toowoomba where we haven’t been to the wine festival, but we were still able to enjoy the gardens.
Mum and Dad brought my grandparents down this year to see the flowers (and Lyra).
It was 70 years of the Carnival this year, so that was the theme at Laurel Bank Park
And we even managed to visit a few prize gardens.
The TSRC opened on the Sunday with a marathon (there was a also a bike race and open day on the Saturday that Mark and Julie went to). I only signed up for the 10km as I (correctly) assumed I would still be sleep deprived on the day.
The bypass was pretty impressive, although it was hard to see much from the eastbound lane.
The downhill was okay (after a quick pee stop), but at the turnaround point the uphill was disgusting.
The Food and Wine Festival was great as always. Katherine was visiting from London, and Geoff & Carla also came up.
I didn’t think the theme at Laurel Bank was as good as previous years, but still impressive.
I actually thought Queen’s Park had better flowers this year.
There was a new event called the Night Garden, which was okay but probably not worth the admission price (I ended up winning free tickets from work).
Laurel Bank Park always has the best flowers, and this year was pretty good also although harder to make out the shapes then previous years (besides the Australia outline).
Queen’s Park was also as good as always also.
We only went to one day of the food and wine festival this year, and we didn’t have anyone staying with us, but it was as fun as always.
We went at lunch time so Rachael finally got to make her free headband before they ran out of flowers.
Yesterday afternoon I went to an Engineers Australia tour of the MRH90 helicopter training simulator at Oakey Air Base.
We were allowed to take some photos, so here they are. Calculated using a 20 year life cycle, they said it costs $10,000 an hour to run. But that is cheaper than training in the real helicopters, which costs around $270,000/hour over the life of the helicopter.
The movement part of the simulator was turned off when we were allowed inside the cockpit, but even with just the projection screen running it tricked your brain into thinking it was real and that we were actually moving.
