Day 20 Friday 24/6/2022 Braemar to Toogoolawah, sunny 4 – 23

Woody ducks out of the van in the wee hours to answer the call of nature and comes face to face with a large white horse! The morning dawns fresh and bright and the diesel heater purrs away. We’ve decided to head back into town for an evening dinner at the pub.

Toogoolawah or two galahs as they seem to call it has a convenient and free freedom camp on old railway station land in the heart of town and right on the Main Street, with….wait for it…flushing toilets! How good is that? To explain the feeling of this town, as I wander about snapping pics of buildings I hear singing, a woman’s voice, it’s the traffic controller at the roadworks on the main street. Sunshine and singing this is a happy place.

Toogoolawah has gone all out to attract tourists. Counting Jack’s Place there are 3 free camps as well as the Showgrounds for $20 and the parachute club for $25. And boy, it seems to be working for them as the town is busy. Like Esk, it is a pretty town with lashings of character-filled wooden Queenslander-style buildings. We all take short walks and read in the sun except for Woody who pounds out 10kms and I take the chance to sketch the Lutheran church across the way.

It’s an icy evening and the big old Toogoolawah Hotel is welcoming. The walls are adorned with an eclectic array of paintings, dozens of them, and off in a side room there’s a dress shop. In the corner behind us there’s a piano with a Greek or is it Roman bust on top. We can’t work out whether the poor bloke is in agony or ecstasy, but he holds our interest. The boys tell Elle and I that the bar staff have full view of the urinals, as you can gather this is a rather quirky and typically Queensland pub.

We wrongly assume that it is a quiet night or that we’ve chosen the wrong venue as we’re the only ones in the dining room when the pub noisily fills. The meals are huge and tasty, though none of us are game to order the 500gm steak. As we leave the pub I can’t help but think what a joy it is to be wandering the now darkened Main Street, there are huge Moreton Bay fig trees, a produce store, and even an old-fashioned shop front garage that smells of dusty oil stains and things mechanical. This is a delightful town.

Accom: $0 (Toilets, 24hour stay limit) In the heart of town.

Towing Kms: 5kms (another exhausting drive and not even worth putting a map up)