ASCILITE 2017 is coming to my home town, and I couldn’t be more excited. I grew up on the Darling Downs, did my high-schooling in Toowoomba, but never actually lived “in town” until three years ago, when I moved back home with my young family. I moved for the free babysitting really, but I stay for a whole lot more than that. My top five reasons to love Toowoomba – both as a place to live and a place to visit (say, for a conference) are…
1. The foggy mountain top
Toowoomba is perched on the top of the Great Dividing Range. This means you can watch the temperature drop as you drive up that steep, steep highway from Brisbane. It also means that early mornings can be foggy at any time of the year. There is nothing more romantic than waking up to fog rolling past the window, or seeing fog settled on a lake on your morning walk. Sure, it can make driving home on a foggy night a bit of an adventure, but I still love it every time the fog rolls in.
2. The laneways in the CBD
Toowoomba does this really, really well. It’s a gracious old country town, which has always been the hub for a very large agricultural area. As a consequence there are dozens of laneways in the city precinct. These are now adorned with fabulous public art, and populated by great quality cafes, small bars and restaurants. There are more than 80 urban artworks in a 2km radius, and more being added at this year’s First Coat festival (May 19-21). Some of my favourites are
- The Walton Stores area – with several restaurants, a nitrogen ice-creamery, and an organic café and juice bar. On Saturday mornings the Farmers Markets take over the carpark as well
- The Searles Walk laneway (with the famous Ground Up Espresso) and adjacent Duggan Street murals
- The Russell Street murals
- Club Lane – where you’ll find both an Indonesian street food restaurant and a dessert and coffee bar in converted facilities.
3. The parks
Toowoomba is known as the Garden City for a reason. It has red volcanic soil that gardeners just love, and you can see the results everywhere you look. My favourite parks are
- Ju Raku En Japanese Gardens at USQ. They are the largest and most traditionally designed Japanese Gardens in the southern hemisphere. My kids love to explore the “Remote Singing Valley”.
- Laurel Bank Park is a favourite at Carnival of Flowers time, when the garden beds are designed to flower exactly on time, and planted to reflect a theme last year’s was a tribute to Disney musical theatre. All year round, we love the wisteria lined arches, the hedges clipped into a variety of shapes (a train you can sit in! A hungry caterpillar! A giant spider!), the lawns, the playground, and the scented garden designed by the Association for the Blind.
- Picnic Point is the perfect balance of lawns and playgrounds and picnic areas, merging into bushwalking trails that encourage you to explore the hundreds of acres of escarpment bushland on Toowoomba’s doorstep.
- Really, there are so many… Webb Park perched on the side of the mountain with a really long and fast slippery slide built into the slope, Queens Park on the main street into town, where festivals happen, and where practically all visitors stop on their way through town, Newtown Park, with its State Rose Garden and lovely old rotunda, Lake Annand which is connected by walking paths meandering through parks that line East Creek for kilometres… You’ll have to come and stay a while to see them all for yourself.
4. The weather
Toowoomba is practically always cooler than Brisbane – usually by 5 degrees or so, and it rarely gets humid. We also have proper seasons. It gets cold in winter, and is glorious in both autumn and spring. Our summer has just the right balance of hot days (but not too hot) and nights that cool down and give you respite.
5. The Downs
I grew up on the Darling Downs, and I love driving out of Toowoomba through the farmland. There are so many great country drives out of Toowoomba in every direction, and the Darling Downs is a simply beautiful rural setting.
But don’t just take my word for it!
- The Urban List describes Toowoomba as “the place to be” for fresh produce, fresh air, and a refreshing art scene.
- Gardening Australia featured the Japanese Gardens in episode 5 this year – catch it on iView.
- The Global Goddess calls Toowoomba a great city to get lost in, and a mini-Melbourne.
- And on that mini-Melbourne note, check out the great street art around town that came out of the First Coast Festival.