Drive To/From Toowoomba

As mentioned before, Saturday we drove to and from Toowoomba to get away from the small town living for a few hours (Toowoomba's population is about 100,000). Toowoomba is almost an hour's drive southeast of Dalby. I didn't take any pictures while in the city because (a) we were in a mall which was pretty close to what we have in the states (well, without any stores with names that I know - i.e. Gap, BR, J. Crew - and the fact that there is a grocery store as an anchor for the "mall") AND (b) I didn't want the punk/eurochick Aussie teenagers to think that I was a total square for taking pictures.

But I was able to take some while we were driving there and back (Josh drove this trip since he hadn't driven in 2 weeks and figured that he might need some practice).

Here's the view:

It's pretty exciting, yeah?

Sporadically there are windmills in the fields and there are naturally houses along the way and I think that we even pass through 2 smaller-than-Dalby "towns" on the trip. But mainly, it's just grass and clouds and blue skies. Perfect reading and napping weather.

Anything to take my mind off of this -

Through Dalby the Warrego "highway" is 4 lanes (for the short 8 blocks), but once you get out of the town limits, it narrows down to 2 lanes. And it basically stays that way all the way into Toowoomba. Normally when Josh drives, I'm asking him politely if he would mind moving the car over just a bit to the right since it very clearly appears to me that we are driving in the dirt (I think that it's just the way that it feels). But when trucks approach, I just keep my fingers crossed that we are far enough to the left and that our side mirror doesn't get nicked and spin us around.

Once you start getting close to Toowoomba, you start entering the hills and mountains. The picture below was probably taken about 13 miles out from Toowoomba. Toowoomba sits right on the crest of the Great Dividing Range and so we go from plainslands to mountains in under an hour. These mountains are kind of like the Appalachians of Australia in the fact that they are more weathered and rolling than you would get with the Rockies. The whole area kind of reminds me of Chattanooga.

Anyway, we made it to Toowoomba safely, ate lunch, saw our movie and walked around the mall a bit (I bought books - I'm going through them like they are out of style), we left and Josh forget to look right first when turning out of the mall exit. He caught it in time, but it was a bit terrifying (it's on repeat in my head when I approach a turn - 'Look Right, look right, look right....).

On the way back to Dalby, we drove almost directly into the sun. I had my sunglasses so you know 'whatevs', but Josh kept having to adjust the visor so that he could see to drive (and avoid the oncoming trucks).

They do know how to put on a good sunset out here.

And then 10 minutes after that, the sun touched the horizon and everything was green and pink and purple.