Street scenes in Warwick's JJJ Festival...

As promised, here are some more photos from our visit to the Jumpers and Jazz in July Festival in Warwick.

We arranged to meet our friends at the Town Hall...

The Warwick Town Hall from the other side of the street...note the palm tree in the foreground dressed in its hula skirt :-)

Warwick State High School band was giving a concert outside the Town Hall

Knitted/crocheted  post covers and crocheted bunting

Up and down the street were trees that had been yarnbombed...

The Ladies Lingerie/Sleepwear shop had decorated the tree in front of the shop, quite cheekily :-) (large photo and bottom right photo in the collage below)

Some more...

This tree was dressed in a jumper of bottle tops...

The next entry was from Knitting Nannas Against Gas...obviously an objection to the practice of 'fracking' to remove natural gas...

 Vandals had damaged this entry...we were told that if it was some local who did the damage, they will be found via CCTV

 Close up of the damage on the left chin...

 This was the charming Red Rooster Entry...those 'chooks' were just so cute!

Most of the shops entered into the fun...

Even the statue of Thomas Joseph Byrnes  12th Premier of Queensland, had been yarnbombed slightly! lol

But wait...there are more yarn bombed trees!!!

One tree was dressed in op shop jumpers...

Above hung lots and lots of odd socks...there was a suggestion that these were socks which had gone missing from washing machines and washing baskets...wink wink!

DH and I only had a day trip to the festival but as you can see, we certainly saw lots of delightful things. (There are a number of excellent craft shops in Warwick as well but I didn't check them out on this visit)
On our way home to Brisbane, we heard on the radio that a traffic problem that had caused morning peak hour chaos near our home was even worse in the late afternoon. So clever DH worked out a way of getting home without going near Alderley and the broken water main. We detoured and went across the river in the Moggill Ferry...

We were one of the last cars on..we had arrived just in time :-)

Glancing upstream...

So then it was a lovely drive through Moggill, Kenmore to Gap Creek Rd and then home. It had been a lovely day.

Warwick's Jumpers and Jazz festival 2014...The Knitted Kitchen...

I found out about this festival a few years ago but up until now, haven't had the chance to go to have a look. But this year we had an added incentive...a former work colleague and his wife now are living in this town, so we could catch up with D and M, as well as have them as our own personal tour guides.
They said that we MUST see the Knitted Kitchen, so after enjoying some jazz street musicians, and walking around looking at the yarnbombing, a stop for a lovely cup of coffee and homemade scone, we went to the Art Gallery to see this exhibit.

Walking towards the entry to the Art Gallery

I'm not sure whether I let out a squeal of delight when I first caught sight of the display, but I wouldn't be surprised if I did!

 And cameras were not banned like they are in so many galleries...you could not enter the 'kitchen' or touch anything but there was one chair which people were encouraged to sit on to have photos taken...

 The tiled floor was knitted...

D was the Learning Support Teacher at my last school; he's retired now too :-)

Now for a closer look at some of the items...

A box of macaroons beside the old dial phone

The fridge was covered with crocheted doilies...

The 3 level cake tin...so 1950s :-)

Ducks on the wall, the view out of the window in front of the sink unit...

I loved this chair!

There was a little knitted mouse near the kitchen bin...

 A closer look at the table...and that roast chicken...

The back of the kitchen unit...

 A closer look at the ducks!

The kitchen utensils...

 A closer view of the sink...

The dish drainer and the stove top...

For some background information on this art installation I suggest this website...lots of people were involved and the results are amazing! http://www.abc.net.au/local/photos/2014/07/21/4050199.htm

This knitted sculpture was just near the doorway of the exhibit...

If you live in SE Queensland, it's not too late to have a look at what the Jumpers and Jazz in July Festival has to offer...the festival ends on Sunday (27/07)
Program details here...http://jumpersandjazz.com/
I will write another post about the yarnbombing in the streets, so stay 'tuned' for more clever exhibits!

Some more about our train trip..

Lunch was served on the train between Nobby and Warwick...

 The land flattened out a bit but that's another range in the distance...

At times the train ran along high ridges with the land beside the lines dropping away to deep valleys

 Look at this magnificent hotel across the road from the Warwick Station...

More buildings near Warwick station

The very impressive front entrance to the station...

A little bit of history here...in 1917, Prime Minister, Billy Hughes was 'egged' by a protester here. The local police would not arrest the thrower, enraging the PM. From that incident he paved the way for the establishment of a Federal Police Force, the AFP .

Old points at Warwick Station. No trains come this way...only excursions...very sad!

More scenes at historic Warwick Station... 

 Views from the railway bridge...

Soon it was time for the train to continue on its journey...

Next stop was our final destination, Stanthorpe.

My dad used to tell me the story of when he was farming at Ballandean outside of Stanthorpe; on Saturday nights the boys would go into to Stanthorpe for a night out...I think he meant a night at the pub somehow! lol The railway line was a busy one with lots of goods trains making their way south. Late at night the boys would hop on a goods train as it trundled through Stanthorpe and hitch a ride for the 30 miles back to Ballandean. He said that sometimes they would fall asleep and the train would carry them on past their station. Because Queensland has a different rail gauge to New South Wales, the 'sleeping beauties' would only get taken on to Wallangarra which is on the border of the 2 states. But dad embellished the story a bit and reckoned they woke up in Sydney! When I was little I believed him too! lol  

My dad walked along this platform once and so did my mum and I...it's rundown and not generally used but the memories are there!

 The front entrance of the station...not quite as impressive as Toowoomba and Warwick and many of the station buildings have been demolished...

This is the bus that we were transferred to for our trip to the wineries...

 First winery was the Harrington Estate Winery...lovely views...

 The beautiful bunches of grapes ready for picking...

 On the hill overlooking this winery we saw this house...as we looked more closely we noticed that the house was built around a Vic Rail railway carriage...

 The next winery we visited was the lovely Rumbalara Winery. The wines here are all African themed names after the owners' heritage. Their Impi is like Baileys Irish Cream, only better. DH and I didn't buy any Impi...but it was tempting! lol

Our day finished with a magnificent dinner at the Queensland Wine Tourism College. More in a later post...