City of Flowers

Day three of serious op shopping was about to begin and we had Toowoomba in our sights.  However, the first stop was a brief visit to the Garden of Remembrance to visit my aunt and uncle who died within six months of each other. I had attended both funerals but not seen the grave with the double headstones.

The girls were a bit dubious about my ability to find the grave quickly but I drove straight there.  It brought back wonderful memories of marching with my Grulke relatives in the Anzac Day march the day after Uncle Merv's funeral, wearing Dad's medals, the only time I have ever done that.

The first shop we tried to find, Metro Care, proved elusive, but we did manage to locate Drug Arm in Southtown.  It had a lot of stuff in quite a small space, so moving around was complicated. Jo bought almost a whole dinner set there for $25.  The next stop was Vinnies' Madonna House shop.  The entry next to the car park was to a large undercover area, where we found the trip's Mystery Object.  We worked out fairly quickly that you didn't cook anything in them, because they wouldn't take the heat, but after that we were stuck. A poll on Facebook eventually identified them as escargot servers.

I had noticed a strange absence of clothes at this place, but eventually spotted a door in a corner that hid a stairway ... to heaven!  Upstairs was huge, and light and airy.  It's actually S-shaped so this photo doesn't show the large area of clothing to the left, nor the section to the right at the end of the yellow wall.  I tried on many things, but sadly nothing was quite right for my chubby body.

Our next stop was Queens Park Gardens.  Last time we were in Toowoomba, on Road Trip No 2, it was the weekend after Carnival of Flowers, and we had done it again.  We wandered around for ages, and eventually found another visitor who was happy to photograph us wearing our flowers, amongst the flowers.

As we did in 2015, we then drove to the big Lifeline Emporium in Ruthven Street. It was there that I made my most expensive purchase of the trip, a watch for $14.  I was worried that the band on my Kmart watch would break at any moment, so I lashed out. As I write this five weeks later, the band is still holding together, but I like my new watch.

We found a nice little cafe nearby for lunch, called Milk and Honey, which meant we could stay in the Lifeline car park. Then it was off to the Orphans and Widows shop in Russell Street. In all my years of visiting my Toowoomba rellies, why did I never discover Russell Street and its lovely old buildings.  I was particularly impressed with the public toilet built in 1919.

The Orphans and Widows shop is long and narrow. When you pass through the clothes and accessories and get right up the back, you find a door that leads to a second area exactly the same size as the first, that occupies the shop next door.  This is where all the books and bric-a-brac were hiding.  We had to be quick, as we only had coins for half an hour in our metered space, so I didn't find anything there, although the other two did.

Time was ticking away, as we needed to get to Oakey before the last oppy there closed. We had given up on the one that was only open till 2pm. Jo needed a couple of emergency groceries, so we headed towards Wilsonton.  It was on the way, and the Lifeline there is in a large shopping centre.  The shop is fairly small, but this time the results were reversed and I was the only buyer.  Adding to the excitement was the large storm approaching us, according to the BOM radar.

Thus ended our second visit to Toowoomba, but there are so many op shops there, that I doubt if we have visited half of them yet. According to my research, there are seven Lifelines for a start.  We'll be back...