A Little Bit of This and That: Day 6: A trip to Ipswich :)

It's 6.10pm and I arrived home about an hour ago.. I had an exciting day today. Another day of solo traveling this time, Ipswich! To be honest, I intended to go to Toowoomba but there was a slight glitch..

7.15am - I woke up.. all pumped up to go for another round of solo 'discovery' and photo hunting.

Approx. 8.40am - Hopped on the train to Ipswich

Approx. 9.30am - Arrived Ipswich and decided to browse around the area before hopping on the bus to Toowoomba as according to the translink transport website.

About 10am, I went on the 516 bus.. wasn't sure where to stop but I had a bus map which showed the traveling route. As it went around the suburb, I couldn't find a single garden. Yes, my initial plan was to take pictures of the beautiful gardens in Toowoomba (the city dubbed as "The Garden City"). As the bus went around and almost returned to the same place that I hopped on, I decided to get off and walked around.. There wasn't a single garden around but it had a lot of old buildings with unique architectures..

Several minutes later, I decided to hop on the cab instead but before I did so, I asked the cab driver whether he could take me to any interesting gardens in Toowoomba. He had this very puzzled look when I asked him that.. At first I thought that I asked him wrongly.. perhaps the structure of my sentence was unclear. So again I repeated it in a different way.
Here's what happened next:

Taxi driver: "Do you know how far Toowoomba is?" (in a polite tone)
Elena: "Is it far?"
Taxi driver: "Do you know that this is Ipswich?"
Elena: "Yes I do.."
Taxi driver: "Toowoomba is 280 miles away from here.. It will cost you about 260 dollars..."

The moment he said the word 260 dollars, seriously I thought he was joking. I waited for a moment for him to say "Just kidding" or laugh.. unfortunately he didn't. I was puzzled at that moment.. thinking how can Toowoomba be so far away.. then it struck me that the website didn't detect Toowoomba as in Toowoomba itself... instead, a street called "Old Toowoomba Road" in Ipswich. Damn! Didn't want my trip to go to waste, I kindly asked the driver to take me to any interesting places or gardens that I could take pictures in Ispwich and he drove me to a nearby garden/park which had a nice Nature Centre which had Dingos, Red Legged Pademelons, birds, Kangaroos, pigs and such.. and to make things more exciting that it was FREE! After the whole admiration of the animals, I headed to the Japanese garden.. trust me it didn't look all Japanese at all.. but it is nice by the way :-)

After taking some pictures, I walked back to the area that I had hopped on the taxi.. walked around the area.. and I spotted this really neat antique store. It had so many old items.. from cameras to sports memorabilia.. And also, a second hand store which had guitars, bicycles, golf sets, xbox, psps, ps 2 and ps 3, cameras, video cameras, cell phones and so much more! I went insane in the store.. I wish I had a lot of money so that I could bring back a guitar, a mountain board and a mini dirt bike. After walking for about an hour plus around the town, I noticed that the place is essential for bargain hunters.. Basically the shops that I had encountered are either second hand stores or discount stores. Would I recommend people to go there? Yes, most definitely.. but that's if you have a lot of time to kill. :-)

Anyway, here are some pictures from the short trip: