Located in the City of Ipswich, Queensland, Australia.
I walked from the other side of town to home today. A trip of about 9.5km all up with a lovely break in the middle for lunch with friends at the park café. After lunch I went for a wander through the park, ending up at the lookout.
This is the view from the lookout, looking west into the city. The park café is hidden behind the trees near the red car.
A southerly view of the park. It's all so green at the moment from the summer storms. I haven't filtered these photos at all - that's how it looked in the early afternoon sun.
Hidden behind the trees here are the orchid house and the Bush Chapel. The Bush Chapel is an open air chapel with bench seats surrounded by Jacaranda trees - so lovely when they're in bloom and the area is carpeted in purple!
A plaque showing the lookout's history. The plain brown wooden platform shown is how I remember the lookout as a kid. I attended Brownies (Guides/Girl Scouts) in the park and we would often end up at the lookout. It's a good climb up the hill. There's an elevation increase of 34 metres from the park entrance to the lookout. Great exercise!
The lower part of the park has a nature centre and children's play equipment. There are huge shady trees throughout. When I walked through the area was full of family groups taking advantage of the lovely weather. The sun was hot with the temperature sitting around the 30°C mark, but there was a cool breeze most of the day. For an area that regularly gets 40°C summer days, it was really quite nice.
There are a few Covid restrictions in place, but with extremely low active cases at present (the tracker is showing 13 current active cases for a population of around 5 million) we are fairly free to move around and have lovely days like this out and about in the park and at the café. I'm very thankful for this current freedom, but acutely aware it could change very quickly.
It's been a long time since I did such a big walk and I'm sure my legs are going to ache after the lookout climb! It felt good and cleansing to get out there and step it out though.
Until next time,
@Sammie
Original content created by @Sammie.
