21st April to 6th May 2012

21^st April 2012

Finally we have started doing some of the tourist things with a trip to Haig Street Quarry Bushland where we were able to take a 2km walk with Foxy around an old disused quarry.  This was open bushland rather than rainforest with a large pond in what was the deepest part of the quarry pit.  At highest point of the track was lookout over the quarry with a distant view of the ‘Scenic Rim’ volcanic outcrop, which is basically the border with NSW, with the more distant Great Dividing Range behind them.

25^th April 2012

We celebrated Anzac Day with an hour long walk around Springfield Lake Park which appears to be a man-made lake on a water course with a rather expensive housing estate built around it.  A short part of the walk involved walking through some of the estate roads but most was either through bushland alongside the water course or around the lake itself.  There was also a fair sized shopping centre across the road.  The Amberley RAAF base had an open day but we didn’t go to it as you’re not allowed to take photographs so there wasn’t much point.  However, they did have one F18 doing numerous flyovers although it was quite high and still didn’t allow really clear shots of the plane due to the speed, but we did improve on what we had already achieved.

28^th April 2012

We had intended catching a bus and train into Brisbane and South Bank yesterday to see how much has been done with the rebuilding after their floods last year.  What we saw when we there late in the year was very impressive, however, the weather turn to wet and cold and not ideal for standing around at bus stops and train stations and walking along South Bank was not a good option.  The weather is currently worse in Brisbane than it is in Ipswich and is predicted to be much the same for the rest of the week so that trip and others might not happen.

30^th April 2012

The weather was reasonable once more so we drove into Ipswich with the intention of checking out the heritage buildings but Merry was given a medical appointment in the middle of the afternoon which interfered with the arrangement so we only got to pay a visit to Limestone monument opposite Queens Park.  This provided a good view out over the town before revisiting the Visitor Centre for more information.   Merry then attended her appointment which left little time for more site seeing, but we drove out to the small township of Rosewood to check on the car parking facility at the railway station as we feel that would be a better option for catching the train into Brisbane rather than using several buses just to get to the train station in Ipswich.  We don’t want to leave the car parked all day at the Ipswich Park and Ride area as we are led to believe it has a slightly bad reputation.

6^th May 2012

We now have cold nights and pleasant days so we went into Ipswich and took advantage of free Sunday parking to allow us to walk around the town to check the Heritage buildings and also  drive around to check on the highlighted, and impressive Queenslander houses.  With having to drive to various locations to view the houses and a couple of moves in town it all took about four hours, and gave us a reasonable walk.