The Carnival has begun.

The Toowoomba Carnival of Flowers started yesterday and today our city was fairly buzzing. I thought I would head down to the Farmers' Market early to beat the crowds but at 7.30am or so it was already quite busy. As the market is just across the road from one of our premier parks, Queens Park,  I took the opportunity to zip over there and take some photos before the thousands of visitors arrived.

On leaving the market though I came across these cuties....

..who were stopping for a drink. They were dressed for the occasion. LOL!

As they always seem to do, our Council gardeners have excelled themselves once  again despite the prolonged drought conditions much of Queensland is experiencing. I might be wrong but I believe bore water is used on the parks and gardens in our city.

The Ranunculas were beautiful in such delicate colours....

...as well as row upon row of assorted flowers...

...a ferris wheel which was something new...

...and so many different gardens that I didn't have time to see them all. 

Then I headed home to pick up the CEO as it is a tradition to visit the Bromeliad Society Show on the Saturday. Well, it was already getting very busy with gardeners walking out with boxes of bromeliads, succulents and various forms of cactus.

 Simply Succulents from the Sunshine Coast were there with lots and lots of very affordable pots of cactus and succulents and, if you live in Australia and want to buy some for yourself, they do sell online.

I was going to buy another smallish Firestick plant and the CEO asked me why as he didn't really like the plant but then I saw this bigger one and decided against it as I don't want to buy anything that is going to spread too much and also I just came across this article about how you need to be careful when handling this plant because of the sap.

I took a photo of a couple of the champion plants like the one above...

...and this bromeliad which the CEO really liked. I preferred the more colourful ones. 

We came home with four bromeliads which were $5 each and because I will lose the name tags or they will fade eventually I will record what each of them are called for future reference. Clockwise from the top they are Neoregelia Domino, Neoregelia Palmareo, Neoregelia Tar Baby and Neoregelia Hot Embers. 

I also threw in an Echeveria Blood Maria as that is one succulent I didn't have. Due  to the prolonged drought I am just putting in plants that don't require a lot of water until it starts to rain once again.

There are so many events on that it must be very difficult for visitors to decide what to check out especially if they are only on a day trip. I always visit Laurel Bank Park as that is very quirky usually and hopefully that will happen once it isn't so crowded in town as over 200,000 people are expected during the week. If you have made the trip up the range to our beautiful city then I am sure you will thoroughly enjoy yourself.