Carnival of Flowers 2041 we’ve come a long way

The 2041 Carnival of Flowers has arguably been the best the Garden City has enjoyed since the festival went to a two-month celebration in 2032 to take advantage of the Olympic Games.

Not only have the parks and gardens been in top quality attracting hundreds of thousands over the eight-week carnival, but we’ve seen come to fruition a number of city projects that for years seemed out of reach.

Take the new Wilsonton Water Park on the grounds of what used to be the Wilsonton Airport which has since moved out to Wellcamp Airport and Casino.

The Water Park supplied by recycled water was opened this week by Queensland Premier Johnathon Thurston who heaped praise upon the facility.

“I remember when Toowoomba first mooted the idea of recycling waste water back in the early 2000s only to have the rest of Australia disrespect city residents by dubbing the Garden City ‘Poowoomba, capital of the Darling Browns’,” Premier Thurston said.

“But this Water Park will provide the city residents with many months of fun, entertainment and relief from the longer, hotter summer months now that global warming has risen the temperatures by a degree or two.”

Premier Thurston was also celebrating 10 years at the helm of the Queensland First Party and he took time while in the Garden City to call in on the NRL Franchise he owns, The Toowoomba Frost, which is about to jet off to Sydney for the team’s first NRL Grand Final against the Redcliffe Dolphins.

Mayor John Wagner has jumped on board and will fly The Frost players and officials to Sydney aboard one of the Wagner Airspace shuttles which returned to Wellcamp this week, bringing home FIFO workers from the Wagner Lunar Quarry on the moon.

However, the octogenarian mayor won’t be accompanying the team to Sydney but will instead join thousands of other Toowoomba Frost supporters to watch Sunday afternoon’s grand final on the big screen at Gus McKellar Stadium where the Australian Rugby Sevens team was based during the Olympic Games nine years’ ago.

It was also a thrill to welcome Prime Minister Jacinta Price, Australia’s first indigenous female prime minister, back to Toowoomba to officially open the Harlaxton Quarry Gardens which have proved so popular that few people recall the scepticism held by many residents way back in 2021 that the gardens would ever be started let alone completed.

Thousands of Brisbane and Lockyer Valley residents took advantage of the Fast Rail Link, which takes passengers from Brisbane’s Roma St Station to the Albi Bud Tunnel under Toowoomba in a mere 20 minutes, to be at the opening of the Quarry Gardens.

When launching the Brisbane to Toowoomba Fast Rail Link in 2035, Queensland Governor Sir Ian Healy said the Albi Bud Tunnel was a piece of inspired engineering that took passengers from the underground station below Harlaxton up to the surface via gondola lift to link with the monorail which takes tourists into the CBD proper.

“The train is quicker than a Mitchell Starc full toss and the gondola rises as sharply as a Shane Warne toppy,” Sir Ian said at the time.

“And, the monorail has at last given meaning to those bloody awful obelisks, now pylons for the monorail, that have stood in Ruthven St for the past 40 years.”

After bidding farewell to his Toowoomba Frost team, Premier Thurston was then taken to view and officially open the new Table Top Mountain Casino chairlift.

The chairlift ferries casino patrons across the valley from Picnic Point to Table Top via a series of cable cars transported by cables attached to old Ergon powerline towers that fell into decay once everyone went solar.

Premier Thurston was among the first to take a cable car across to Table Top Casino and obviously enjoyed the experience as he could be heard laughing all the way.

Premier Thurston was among the first to take a cable car across to Table Top Casino.