Brisbane. The capital city of Queensland. Australia’s third-most populous city. Home to some 2.9 million people. Plus two for a few days as we head south to avoid the continuous rain forecast for a week on the Sunshine Coast! Last year, we spent a few nights in Robin and Linda’s apartment in the Oaks Festival Towers. At that time the Albert Street Metro station was being hugely updated. The Cross River Rail was being developed. The noise of the construction work then was “considerable”. Twenty four hours a day. We found ourselves praying for rain at night. That was the only thing that kept the noise levels down. This year the main building has been “topped-out”.
The roof is now being used as a store room! The bulk of activity seen from our window involves the craning of large containers of assorted bits and pieces for construction work on the front face of the station where a large canopy is being installed. Very precise work. I think the crane drivers have done it before!
Linda was working in the city on the Monday. We had had the choice of driving down from the Sunshine Coast with her at 05.00 am or taking two 50 cent rides from Woombye to Brisbane Central departing at 10.36 am. It didn’t take long to decide!
After Linda finished work we had a glass of wine and walked to the Story Bridge Hotel for supper. Fish and chips, and pie and chips, as I recall. The hotel is a pub-style place located literally under the bridge. The projecting wing above the main entrance (seen below) is the very edge of the bridge deck. You can even see a street light on the side of the road up there.
Located at the tip of Kangaroo Point, the area is famed for Australian Football League street parties as well as the Annual Cockroach Races!
Roaches are released from the centre of a circle, and the first to reach the perimeter wins. Allegedly, cockroaches can reach speeds of up to 50 body lengths per second, maybe 5 or 6 kph. And they have almost instantaneous reactions when threatened. Just like snail racing, but rather quicker. I’d hate to be the adjudicator in the event of a tie with the insects crossing the finishing “line” at opposite sides of the circle!
Walking home (at a sub-roach speed), we crossed the new Kangaroo Point pedestrian bridge. Fabulous views across the river to the high rise buildings of “Riverside”.
Looking back, there’s the Story Bridge …
… and looking up, the illuminated pillar supporting our crossing …
I don’t think I’ve ever before crossed a Bridge which tells you how much it’s being used!
We were the 362,394 – 362,396th pedestrians to cross so far this year! What a useful fact-let! We had also contributed three crossings earlier in the evening. So today alone we have accounted for almost 0.002% of the total pedestrian crossings since New Years Day. It was really worth them building the bridge!
Another day we wielded our credit cards for 50 cent trips on the River Cat ferries. This time we cruised all the way down-river to Hamilton, just short of the Gateway Bridge. This carries the M1 motorway on it’s way to Sydney, almost 1,000 kms to the south.
While we were on this stretch of the river, we saw a white bellied sea eagle serenely patrolling his patch of territorial waterway. Clearly distinguished by it’s huge size, white tummy and wings held in a characteristic “V” shape. Fabulous. Fifty cents to be able to watch such a magnificent bird! I call that a bargain! We’ve seen sea eagles in two places before. First on the Isle of Wight where a group of juvenile eagles were released several years ago as part of a re-introduction scheme, and secondly in Norway, north of the Arctic Circle. Both trips cost significantly more than 50 cents! But in both cases the eagles were white tailed sea eagles with a maximum wingspan of typically about 2.4 m compared with about 2.0 m for their white bellied cousins as found in Australia.
After the excitement of seeing eagles, almost for free, in what is basically an urban area, we need a coffee! We decided to hop off the ferry at New Farm Park from where it’s but a short walk to the Powerhouse. As it’s name suggests this is a re-purposed power station. It has a reputation for being a bit arty-crafty.
The place puts on exhibitions and shows, but there wasn’t much of interest in that line today. So time for a coffee. We rejected Café Vertigo on the fourth floor. There’s already too much of that “instability” about – but we’ll get to that in due course. So it was Mary Mae’s café on the ground floor. Then back on a Cat to Riverside for lunch. And a very significant lunch it was too! The Pronto Banquet at Massimos. Nine courses for $54 a head. Less than £30 each. Basically, several starters, pasta, eye fillet steak, potatoes, salads and two desserts in the shape of enormous cannoli – well, we are at an Italian restaurant!
One of these went into a box to take home for tomorrow! When tomorrow came, the single cannolo comfortably served three of us!
That evening saw a most peculiar map being shown on Sky news. A rainfall map.
The pink bit shows a weekly total of 300 mm of rain. In one of the driest parts of the continent! The Corner Country. Where Queensland, New South Wales and South Australia meet. More or less slap bang in the middle of the Strzelecki Desert!
The normal ANNUAL TOTAL rainfall in this region is about 200 mm! (This REALLY is a very unusually wet, wet season!) It is a fact of mine that all good Australians know that the Strzelecki Desert supports a population of the endangered Dusky Hopping Mouse.
(Those last two lovely photos are clearly not mine, but borrowed off the internet. They add a touch of class to this post! Thank you Mr Google.)
Anyway, back to Brisbane. Robyn and Kevin, friends made in the Kimberley, many years ago, joined us for a day. First things first. “Morning Tea”. (This covers any drink taken before lunch.) Coffees in our case. On the 21st floor of the Emporium Hotel.
A coffee shop (yellow) with a view! Followed by lunch at a Turkish restaurant (Red) close by on the South Bank. Well we are trying to minimise walking distances in the heat!
After a really nice meal, I decided to try their baklava. But we just wanted a taste so we ordered one serve cut in four. After some time, the waiter arrived with the dish and told us he couldn’t really cut it into four, so he had just halved it! It was microscopic!
We were not impressed! However, it tasted good (I think) and it did cause a bit of hilarity! In the end, it only cost the princely sum of $3.50, less than £1.80. I guess it’s normally served as an accompaniment to a tiny cup of strong Turkish coffee!
A gentle stroll through the parkland of the South Bank gave a great view of the Star Hotel and Casino. That is the building where we failed to find the access lift to the Sky Deck which runs around the hotel at the 23rd floor! Better luck this time? We are sending out a search party tomorrow!
Over the Neville Bonner pedestrian bridge straight into the ground level areas of the Star Hotel and it’s time to say goodbye to Robyn and Kevin. They are catching a bus to look for their car which they abandoned this morning on the outskirts of the city.
The next day we did find our way to the Sky Deck. In fact it was quite clearly signed so long as you start outside the hotel. At 100 m above ground level, the views are stunning from the 250 m curved deck. The M3 motorway which runs far below along the Queen’s Wharf area is known as the Queen’s Wharf Road, or the Riverside Expressway.
In 1936, A retaining wall and improvements were made along Queen’s Wharf Road as part of interwar “Beautification Initiatives”. In1968 construction of the modern Riverside Expressway, which runs over and alongside the Queen’s Wharf area, commenced. Major sections were opened between 1973 and 1976. Sadly, this led to the removal of all the original wharf structures.
Now they really need to made the roads wider again to accommodate increased traffic. Or maybe they should put the road in a tunnel and concealed it completely! Controversial!
Here I am trying to look cool, calm and collected, while standing on a glazed section of the balcony.
Trying not to be distracted by other people’s choice of footware …
… while trying to concentrate on the view of Neville’s bridge, the big wheel, one of the river cats and the Performing Arts Centre.
From the rear extremity of the Sky Deck, it is almost possible to see our apartment. The yellow arrows point at “our” corner crane as seen in my photo above!
Later, on the South Bank river-side walk, we came across these two bronze statues sitting on a bench.
A lady sat beside them and was hugely startled when the statue of the guy next to her started moving!
Clearly (with hindsight) he was a “living statue”! Sadly, I missed getting a video of the event by seconds!
The next day was Sunday. Could we find train times from Central Station to the Sunshine Coast? Could we heck! The hotel receptionist couldn’t either. The advice was pitch up and catch a bus to the first station with service. We decided Roma Street station was a better bet for catching buses! In the event, it turned out that there were major track works and the line was closed to all traffic between Roma Street and Bowen Hills. Three stops were stopped! The train was running, but out the back door away from Bowen Hills. It merged with the north-bound track just north of Bowen Hills and we were away. As they say, all’s well that ends well!
Drat, I still haven’t covered the slippery steps thing!
That will have to wait. As will the report of our encounter with Victoria from Boccarina and Torika from Nandi (Fiji).
Thank you for showing me vistas from Brisbane. Improvements to the Brisbane vistas completed before and since we moved to Stanthorpe. We didn’t want to ever go into the city whenever we were in Brisbane to see the family.
I remember The Story Bridge Hotel from its less glamorous and noisy past.
Thanks for a great “catch up ” day in Brisbane. We did enjoy the cannoli for afternoon tea as well, and the car was safe where we left it all day. 50 cent fares are definitely the way to go, and it’s even free in non-peak times for Seniors!