New tourist attraction could be built with little expense

YOUR SAY: The Toowoomba Second Range Crossing at its intersection with the New England Hwy would make a great site for a second major lookout in Toowoomba.

Construction is continuing on the TSRC and Nexus has released a list of what people can expect in the first quarter of the year.

>>RELATED: Want to work on the Second Range Crossing?

YOUR SAY: Nexus appears to be constructing a large flat area on the south eastern corner of the arch bridges carrying the New England Highway over the Second Range Crossing and it is an obvious site for a second major lookout for Toowoomba with relatively little expense to the council.

It will have great views in every direction overlooking the Toowoomba viaduct and the soon to be constructed Inland Rail link from Helidon to Gowrie.

It should challenge Picnic Point with a large car parking facility. Perhaps, Nexus could be persuaded to complete its work on this site and construct and open the "Nexus Lookout".

The mayor should be congratulated on his obtaining the support of his fellow mayors to get high-speed rail access to Toowoomba. Forty-five minutes may be a little optimistic but an hour's trip from Roma St to a new station near the northern end of Boundary Street would be very attractive.

With this rail access, Toowoomba has been compared with the Blue Mountains, a tourist mecca. On the other hand, Toowoomba is a very minor tourist destination but has great potential, so let us compare Toowoomba and the Blue Mountains.

The rail access to the Blue Mountains is efficient but has little to recommend it as a scenic journey. The Toowoomba access from Roma St via the Inland Rail route is little better as far as Ipswich.

However, after that, there will be quite attractive landscape views as far as Helidon. The line from Helidon to Gowrie gives promise of being an outstandingly scenic journey as there will apparently be wonderful views up the valley on a line that appears to be mainly elevated, possibly, at times, quite high. The six kilometre tunnel will be exciting for children.

The Blue Mountains has one great lookout and a few minor lookouts.

Toowoomba,with the lookout mentioned above, will have two great lookouts with a number of minor lookouts. The Blue Mountains has many attractive tree-lined streets and Toowoomba has a likewise number.

And it is in parks that Toowoomba shines as there appears to be no really attractive parks in the Blue Mountains.

We have no less than two parks of world importance here in Toowoomba.

The Japanese Gardens is famous as being in the top 24 in the world as judged by two overseas magazines and the State Rose Garden has been recently judged by the International Rose people as an Eminent Garden joining only 50 other rose gardens in the world.

As if this is not enough for our council, the number of other memorable parks in Toowoomba is impossible to enumerate as we would certainly leave some out accidentally.

We should mention that Toowoomba has shopping facilities quite comparable with the capital cities. The Blue Mountains has a large number of shops nearly all tourist orientated.

Toowoomba therefore outshines the Blue Mountains in most aspects and has a tourist potential quite in excess of the Blue Mountains

PETER AND BETTY SHERIDAN, Kearneys Spring

Originally published as New tourist attraction could be built with little expense