The 1980s:
WITH the route of the Toowoomba Carnival of Flowers parade having been changed a couple of years before, the start of the ‘80s held yet another change for this iconic event.
Up until this point, the Carnival of Flowers had always been held on the Village Green, next to the Toowoomba Regional Art Gallery and behind City Hall.
Due to the Carnival’s growing popularity, space and road closures in the city’s CBD had become a bit of an issue, so the decision was made to move the event to Queens Park early in the 1980s.
On the first Saturday of the 1982 Carnival of Flowers, activities in Queens Park included the arrival of the parade floats and the Wine and International Foods Fiesta, at which visitors could taste Queensland wines and sample foods from around the world.
The Fiesta featured Bavarian cowbells, German singers and a Sicilian dance group, and the day’s entertainment ended with an Aboriginal dance and music performance.
Back in the ‘80s, men across the region would enter The Chronicle–Carnival of Flowers Beard Growing competition, working on their ‘face garden’ from April to September in the hopes of winning the best–grown beard of the year.
Among The Chronicle Garden Competition gardeners, a friendly but fierce war was waged during this time, with the Timbs, the Conquests, the Peers, Webbs, and Hultgrens all being crowned multiple times.
The Mundeys started their second garden in 1984, making 131 trips past Goombungee to collect lichen–covered rocks for landscaping purposes.
This, perhaps, serves as an example of the dedication some gardeners poured into their gardens.
On that front, at least, nothing has changed.
But, in the years that followed, many things changed — all for the better — and many more behind–the–scenes improvements happened to ensure the best events each year.