Day Trip To Toowoomba
A mate and I took a day trip to Toowoomba so we could have a play with our digital cameras. I just bought a Canon EOS 450D so I was keen to take it for a spin. I’m just getting into photography and my mate has a lot of experience so it’s a good way to learn a few tricks 
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Toowoomba is 2 hours drive west of Brisbane and is located up in the mountains. The town is much much bigger than I was expecting and is a pretty cool place to visit. I guess that’s because it’s a bit of a regional hub for towns in South Western Queensland.
By Queensland standards it has some old buildings which is a refreshing change from all the “modern” (and I use that term loosely) architecture in Brisbane. The photograph on the left is a shot of the town hall in Toowoomba. I wish I took more notice but it’s an older building from the late 19th century I think (quite a few of the buildings were built around that time). This building was one of the first we found as it’s on Toowoomba’s main street - Ruthven St. The entire street is full of buildings that were built around the turn of the century / early 20th centure.
This was also one of my first attempts at using HDR software to capture all the range of highlights and shadows in the picture. It was a bit overcast as well which made for some really striking photos - the clouds and the architecture give the photos a more dramatic effect.
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Diagonally opposite the city hall is St Lukes Anglican Church. Up close the church looks a lot younger than it looks in the photo - either the people who restored it did an amazing job or the people who built it took a lot of effort to make sure it fit in with Toowoomba’s historic appearance.
The church would look right at home in the old english countryside (well… maybe not in summer :P). It has some of those famous Toowoomba gardens working for it. This shot is where a wide angle lens would’ve come in real handy as I would’ve been able to take the same shot much closer and capture more detail but oh well… I’ve got kit lenses for the time being so I have to make do 
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Here’s a shot of the back of the church… I liked this shot because of the building and the bell tower on the side. It would’ve probably been nice to get a closeup of the cross at the top too because it looks great against the clouds and sky.
Thinking about it now we should’ve tried to go inside the church… there would’ve been some interesting shots with the stain glass windows and I wonder if the interior is as nice as the exterior.
Again I’ve used HDR in both of these shots to bring out the full range in the highlights and shadows. It’s the first time I’ve used HDR but I’ve got to say I’m becoming a huge fan 
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Here is the old courthouse in Toowoomba. It’s an iconic landmark that I probably can’t do justice to here (pardon the pun :P). We were at Toowoomba on the weekend and it looked closed so all I’ve got is this photo of the exterior.It’s another one of those buildings that would’ve been great to check out the interior… oh well maybe next time!
The courthouse was built in 1878 so it’s one of the oldest buildings in town - built even before Australia became a country! The other way to look at it is that it was built only 90 years after European settlement which means the white fellas expanded really far really quickly! The courthouse stopped being used in 1979 (which was a really good year by the way)… I only hope it hasn’t been replaced by one of those modern cheap pre-fabricated buildings that are so typical in modern Australian architecture.
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The next item on our walk about Toowoomba is the train station. The train station is a vital piece of infrastructure in Toowoomba as it allows all manner of goods to be shipped to Brisbane and interstate.
The train station is another one of those classic Queensland buildings that we just can’t get enough of up here. I have no idea when the train station was built but it has a few pieces of railroad history at the station. I have no idea what they’re called but they have a few of those little go-kart type things that are used by workers to go up and down the tracks and check the condition of them. All human powered too! Not an easy job or one I’d be putting my hand up for… would get fit pretty quick though 
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Well at least I know where those tired train workers would end up… there’s nothing that’d make a man work those tracks faster than knowing there’s a beer waiting for him at the end of the track! I’m guessing this would’ve also doubled as a hotel as well by the look of the balconies on the top floor.
You’d hope there were no trains running past the hotel at night cause I reckon a big coal train would shake that hotel around a bit
Being a photo geek (any maybe cause I’m allergic to beer… boo!) I didn’t stop at the pub… maybe I should have for some creative inspiration.
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By this point we’d covered most of the town center.Running out of ideas we went to the town’s information center which I have to say was probably the best information center I’ve ever been to. The staff gave us a map of Toowoomba and marked a few points of interest on it for us. So with our next destination mapped out we went to Picnic Point. Picnic Point is a 15 min drive from the town center but definitely worth the drive. Picnic Point is basically a park on top of a large hill. It has a great view of the country side around Toowoomba and as the name suggests it’s a great place to have a picnic! This photograph is of Tabletop Mountain… but to be fair I don’t think it’s really a mountain by official standards. Here in Australia any mound of dirt that’d take more than a week to shovel out is a mountain
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The last stop on our day trip to Toowoomba were the Japanese gardens. Toowoomba has one of the biggest and best Japanese gardens in Australia. The gardens are near the university and were setup by one of the Japanese professors at the university.
I was still in HDR mode when taking the photos of the gardens which is a bit of a shame - I don’t think using HDR was the best option here. Still I got some decent shots in so it’s not all bad
This photo is of the lake. It has a mini island in the middle which is connected to the outside by little red arch bridges. It’s all very Japanese and very awesome!
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Here’s a shot of that lake from another angle and you can see more of the little red bridges connecting various sections of the gardens together.
One of the things I really love about this garden is that it’s not really a pure Japanese garden but more a fusion of Japanese and Australian. Sure the styling is all Japanese but many of the plants in the gardens are all Australian natives. This is really important because foreign plants can struggle to survive in Australia’s harsher climates.
Also the use of Australian native plants brings out the Australian native animals (and some not so native ones :P).
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Hehe… not sure if it is really meant to be a BBQ / Picnic table but I think it looks like one… and a really nice one by Australian standards. Beats those corrugated iron roof painted ones any day
Below is another photo of the lake. The lake forms the center piece of the gardens and everything is build around it. In the lake there are seven poles in a line. I’m not sure if it’s artistic statement of if there is some purpose to it???
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So I’ve got to admit it… Toowoomba really surprised me. It’s an awesome little town with a lot going on inside of it. I’ll definitely be keen to do another trip out there in the future!
Western Galleries Shop In Toowoomba
