Brisbane

Brisbane is the beautiful capital city of Queensland. It was settled in the early 1800s as a penal colony for the convicts too dangerous or odious to be kept in Sydney. John Oxley was sent by the governor of New South Wales, Sir Thomas Brisbane, with an exploration team to find a location. Wow, you'd think they would re-do that portrait. Anyway, they initially settled closer to the water at Moreton Bay, but for some reason the Aborigines didn't appreciate their company and kept driving them to different locations. The city centre came to be 20 kilometeres up the Brisbane River. The convicts were treated brutally by the commandant, Captain Patrick Logan, until he was murdered in 1830. The only standing building that dates back to convict times is the old windmill. After it was built, they realised that no one knew how to make it run, so it was turned into a massive treadmill and convicts were made to churn it as punishment. I'm not an architect, but I think I know how you get a windmill to work. I think it's wind. Non-convict settlers started arriving in 1838 and the city has since grown to be the 3rd largest in the country. During WWII, it served as the headquarters for General MacArthur. Unlike Darwin, it was never bombed, but these fallout shelters indicate they were prepared.

It's a quiet and relaxed city, so we had an interesting time finding a place to eat after arriving at our hotel at 9PM. I called a restaurant someone recommended.
"Hello, can you take two people tonight?"
"Ah, yeah, two people."
"OK, great."
"Our kitchen closes at 9:30."
"Oh, so as long as we get our order in by 9:30?"
"Well, that's when our kitchen closes. So I guess if you get here soon."

We did get there in time, but we had to ask the cabbie to drive a bit faster.

South Bank is an area just on the other side of the Brisbane River from the city. It has recently been renovated and contains some really nice restaurants. You can also catch one of the most spectacular views of the city from the banks of the fake beach that has been installed. Oh yeah, they set up a park/playground with a beach set off from the river. We had a really tasty and reasonably priced seafood meal here.

The city has a vibe unique to Australian cities. It's recently become a modern city, after hosting the Commonwealth Games in 1982. The event drew press for other reasons as well. Brisbane has the feel of a really fun, big, small town. People are friendly and everything is walkable. The arcade in front of Town Hall plays host to a market every weekend, each electrical box is painted by a different artist, new development maintains respect for the old town, and the original locals run wild. This is not to say that Brisbane does not understand its role as third largest city in Australia. By comparison, this is to Australia what Chicago is to the US... but Chicago has 2.8 million people while Brisbane is only 1.8 million. Actually, that's not a huge difference. What's more, both cities are set inland on a body of water. Brisbane relies on its many bridges, especially the Story Bridge, which was designed by John Bradfield, the same architect as the Sydney Harbour Bridge, and he designed it at about the same time. And both Chicago and Brisbane have superb urban planning built around the waterways.

Of course, a city of this magnitude has to be considered on its own account, and there are some fascinating things we discovered. There is a walkway under the Story Bridge that takes you along some cliffs to a massive pedestrian dock. A dock build as a promenade that runs on the river for several kilometres.

We had a great time in Brisbane and if you find yourself there, make the most of it. Our friends Ian and Sandra from Toowoomba came in and we had quite a night. The Casino was blast as well as the pancake house in the old church. We did not figure out why the "Yellow Cab Company" cars are orange, but this is something we can live with. More disturbing observations were the number of people smuggling Krispy Kreme donuts from Sydney to Brisbane and the number of people we saw actually fall over drunk. I'm sure this is just was just due to the heat.