The Sunflower Route

WANTED: Two sunflower thieves last spotted near the town of Allora in Southern Queensland.

My accomplice Talysa and I had been planning this top secret mission for months.  When I say 'top secret', what I really mean is two girls squealing in excitement at the thought of skipping through fields upon fields of sunflowers.

Ever since we discovered that these fields existed not far from Brisbane, we had been waiting impatiently all summer for the flowers to bloom.  When it finally happened, we sped down the Cunningham Highway to see these golden beauties for ourselves.

After a two hour drive from Brisbane, we arrived in Warwick and drove north along the Sunflower Route up to Allora.

At first, it was tricky to find a field where the sunflowers were accessible from the road and facing towards us.

I did my research beforehand, but it hadn't occurred to me that I would need to climb through barbed wire and essentially trespass private property to get up close and personal.

Well, I suppose a girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do!

After getting our hands dirty (literally), we made it to our happy place!

As it turned out, our happy place was shared by bees, spiders and many other insects.  The flowers also towered over us like giants.  Ever the ignorant city slicker, I was expecting these flowers on cute little stems but in reality - I felt like Alice in Wonderland being intimidated by a sea of giant flowers.

But as soon as we embraced the tree-sized flowers and constant threat of being killed by bees, it was all good!

If you thought this post was going to have photos other than of sunflowers, then I'm afraid you are going to be very, very disappointed.

Because frankly, Van Gogh would have been impressed with our effort to artistically capture the beauty of these sunflowers.  We couldn't get enough of these happy blooms!

And as they say, happy flowers = happy girl!

If you're interested in visiting the sunflower fields next summer, you can follow Warwick Tourism to get the latest updates on when the flowers are in bloom.  We get all sorts of crazy tropical weather here in Queensland so I would definitely plan ahead.

Photos by Talysa and Me.