MrBus

Moorooka is just so ripe for becoming one of the best inner city suburbs in Australia. All we need is for the artists and progressive thinkers to spill over from West End and instigate some fabulous venues and we're away. It's got cultural diversity, forests, city views, industrial sized warehouses begging to transcend into urban chic and yoga/dance studios and the Brisbane markets is on the doorstep. Families are spoilt for choice with good schools, playgrounds and places to walk the dogs. The public transport is pretty good by Brisbane standards and close to the city. It's a mixed bag demographic depending on where you are in the suburb. But, from my experience, there are a handful of really good eating places, a solid multicultural base and honestly the best neighbours I've ever had anywhere.

Yawn....
If the weather warms up enough for me to feel my toes I might go to the park. (It's freezing here) The parks are beautiful, which is awesome if you're 5... only slightly less interesting than the Macca's car park if you're a teenager. Toowoomba has an incredibly large number of schools and a university, so it seems a shame (and quite odd) that there is so little to do for the over 5s and under 65s.

Despite Toowoomba's decent-sized population, neither the activities available nor the social attitude, reflect the size of the town. Although lots of locals are very nice, they are particular about the type of people welcome in town and have generally forgotten how to have a good time, unless gospel festivals...avoiding (or being) drink driving hooligans....and gardening a lot, count as uproarious fun. Apart from the rare, terrible natural disasters and the occasional potential hostage situations at local schools, life here is fairly predictable.

The day begins with the large semi trailers full of sorrowful looking cows clanging through the centre of town at around 6am and it really sets a tone for the day... beastly.

Nothing happens and then ho hum continues until wrangling with some uncalled-for verbal abuse and trying to find ways to communicate with the locals through their thick padding of conservative, suburban denial, fritters away the remainder of the day. Dinner must be eaten by 7.30pm if you want a greater range of options and it is advisable to be home before hoon happy hour. On Sundays there are lots of church services and a couple of great produce markets. The public transport is pitiful and the cost of living is not as affordable as the brochures would lead you to believe.

If you are a stay-at-home/ off-to-work-and-back type person, you tend to avoid the bulk of the madness and Toowoomba seems lovely. There is "local" theatre (the occasional touring act), cinemas, gyms, a massive hardware complex (complete with playground), fabulous parks full of flowers, birds that chirp all day, dogs that bark all day, and a strangely disproportionate number of children circling their quarter acre blocks on mini motorbikes. There are a bounty of school fetes with plenty of chocolate crackles, a smattering of pleasant enough cafes serving conventional menus and (save a precious few) genuinely awful coffee, generic shops and a healthy aversion to the adventurous, extreme or people with nose rings, which keeps the town free of any life force too accelerant (in the creative sense; there's plenty of firecrackers about). As for music, think...'all your hits from your 70s, 80s and 90s' and the nightlife is li

.....sorry, I fell asleep.

So if you are content with stuffy collars, egg and lettuce sandwiches and a particular drawer-liner-like scent (Eau de Woomba) that you find in every homeware and clothing "boutique". Or if you're into hotted up cars, television entertainment, online shopping for budget eyeliner and niceness to the point of ignoring the blaringly obvious or ignorance to the point of being oblivious to niceness...then you might like it here. It's not all bad.

The soil is excellent for growing, the air is crisp, the fog is thick which hides the cracks nicely. But as an active or artistic or modern thinker of 15-55yrs, you would find this dried up, mouldy swamp...challenging. There is not quite enough bush to feel country and not enough cultural or progressive activity to be city. There is very little to do other than walk in the park (dodging broken glass, shadows and ciggie butts), pray for salvation and write real estate reviews.

If Toowoomba were an apple, it'd be tart and perfect for pie, but if you like your fruit juicy and full of flavour...pick somewhere else.