Trip to Brisbane

Both Joel and I had a four day weekend for Easter, so on Friday we drove up to Brisbane for the day. When we first got there we had a good first impression. Brisbane has a population of two million and is Australia's third largest city. The Brisbane River runs through it and there are tons of fancy bridges crossing it. Brisbane kind of reminds me of Calgary. There are tons of big buildings downtown, many of them dating from the early 1900's. That's about all I can tell you. On Good Friday all of Australia shuts down, so nothing was open and no tours were running. We drove around for along time looking for an open Subway or MacDonalds to eat lunch. I thought in a big city like Brisbane things would be open, but no. So here is a tour of Brisbane with highlights made up by me.

One of the many bridges crossing the Brisbane River. To our right is the South Bank (cool place to hang out at night) complete with Brisbane Eye Ferris Wheel, to the left is the CBD (Central Business District. All cities have one).

Brisbane City Hall. It is currently under a $250 million renovation. In front is a big square full of statues and a giant tv screen to show Aussie Rules Football (the rules to this sport make no sense, much like their government according to Joel).

Brisbane Botanical Gardens. Very big park, well maintained, pretty to walk through. Parliament hides somewhere in here.

Banyan trees. These things grow all through the park. Joel liked how the branches grew into the ground.

Old building facades. This used to be someone important's home, but now looks like it's been converted to some sort of business.

Not really sure what this building is, but I found a statue of Queen Victoria! When I was a kid I always had to take pictures with my namesake. I guess it's stuck.

The Treasury Building perhaps? Joel liked the big balls. So did the Asians watching us take silly pictures. I think he started a trend.

We found people! And some open restaurants! The Queen Street Mall is where it's at. Mostly just bogans (Oz trailer trash) and backbackers. Had some good ice cream.

The Anzac Memorial in Anzac Square. Anzac is the Australia New Zealand Armed Corps. This monument is to honor those lives lost in World War One and Two. The flame inside burns eternally.

Some white statues. Not really sure what this was about. I thought outback explorers, Joel thought boy scouts. I always have to take goofy photos with statues, usually picking their nose or such. I won't post the pics with me as we came up with some quite inappropriate poses. Anyone who's had the good fortune of taking a statue photo with me can use their imagination.


We parked in an area away from the CBD. On our walk back to the car e fantasized about someone stealing Brutis. Unfortunately he was still there. Here's one of the cool bridges we saw ( the Kiliarnkamo or some other abo(riganal) name).


The most famous bridge in Brisbane is the Story Bridge. You can climb it and go across a la Sydney Harbour Bridge. Melba mislead us for a good while, which led to gas wasting and a fist fight with Joel. Joel won, Melba went back to her cage with a stern warning from me. Once we found the bridge we walked across it and had an awesome view of downtown Brisbane.




Not sure how I feel about Brisbane. We decided we'll give it another try sometime when things are actually open, maybe get a tour and learn some real facts.

We headed back to Surfers and low and behold restaurants here were open!!! Perhaps the city of Brisbane came here for an Easter vacay? We had a nice diner at an Italian restaurant.