March 3-4, 2016
After spending a final week in Ipswich, helping Olivia with a couple of things and finally converting our under bedspace at the foot to pull out drawers, we headed off down the Cunningham Highway and over Cunningham’s Gap to the town of Warwick. As there is no Showground camp or other low cost nearby we opted fro the Rose City Caravan Park for a couple of nights; pleasantly treed and shady but still next to the Highway (but then again so is the Big4 at the other side of town). Rose City welcomes pets and has all the usual amenities without the luxury items (pool, playground etc.).
Warwick has many beautiful old buildings as one of the oldest inland settlements in Queensland. There is a walking heritage trail and a driving trail around the city area.
We have included all of the walking trail in our video (above and on youtube) and a few notable features of the driving trail.
Warwick’s largest tourist attraction is by far the Southern Downs Historical Railway; we were lucky enough to be there on one of their two weekly open days (Wed and Thur) and were conducted around by Peter, one of the very senior volunteers. The whole complex had to be rebuilt as Queensland Rail bulldozed the site, except for the turntable, when it was closed down. They are totally self funded and only ask for a gold coin donation of $2 for entry (or more if you want to) and run trains every month, usually full (about 200 people), at prices from $50 to $95; very reasonable for the length of the journeys.
