Advertisement
Published: January 8th 2008
Edit Blog Post
On my last day in Coffs I avoided the rain and managed to get to the train station to go to Brisbane. The train was late and due to heavy flooding I only went one stop before I had to get on a bus for the rest of the journey. This was a blessing in disguise as if it wasn't for the flooding I would not have been able to see the giant prawn! The giant prawn is one of a few inexplicable tourist attractions in Australia, others include a giant guitar, a giant koala and the big banana. We got to stop by the prawn and get something to eat while admiring this amazing homage to our pink friends from the sea. I got into Brisbane quite late and booked into my hostel, which is a big house in the suburbs turned into a hostel. We are only allowed two minute showers as Queensland is in a big drought with water reserves at around 30%. I have also been told that they may go down to as little as 9% next year!
On my first day in Brisbane I was happy to see dry skies and head out into
the town. I had no idea what was on offer so went into the main centre and had a look round. I came upon the Brisbane cultural centre which is an area with a performing arts centre, museum and two art galleries in close proximity. I went in the museum first as it was free and closest. I spent the next hour walking round and pretending to be interested by looking closely at things, rubbing my chin and going 'hmmm'. There was very little to see and the worse bit had to be the Australian zoo section which was just a load of stuffed animals. If you want to see and learn about animals go on a bush walk or go to a zoo because they are actually living there, trust me thats a much better way.
I left the museum and headed on to my next spot of culture at the Queensland art gallery, which is also free. I have never been in a proper large art gallery before that I can remember but the rain forced me inside. There were some nice paintings in there and I enjoyed having a quick browse. After looking round the whole
thing it was still raining so I decided to make a run for the modern art gallery which was close by and see the Andy Warhol exhibit. All I knew about Andy Warhol was that he painted some soup cans and made that famous painting with Marilyn Monroe's face in different bright colours. It was a lot more interesting to look round than the other art gallery as I was able to learn about the artist and learn about the stories and perceived meanings of the art. After a big dose of culture I came back down to my usual level by browsing round the shops in the Queen Street Mall.
The next day I slept in and did my traveller errands of laundry,writing and sending postcards and putting my bag into an organised mess. I then went into the city centre and went up the old clock tower in the city hall to have a look across the city. You can walk round the top of the tower but make sure you time it so you are not up there on the hour. The bells are very loud. I then took a long walk to the Castlemaine XXXX
brewery just outside of town where I booked onto a tour. For $20 you get an eighty minute tour and four medium glasses of beer (schooners or pots) at the end of the tour. This is not a bad price as you would probably pay that much just for the beer in a pub. I found the tour hilarious although I think it was meant to be taken seriously. There is one section where you learn about the history of the XXXX brewery. The bit that made me laugh most was the part when a mannequin of the old owner explained how the machinery was problematic for four years meaning a struggle in fulfilling the beer demand with music from platoon in the background. They take their amber nectar seriously in Australia, as the tour guide told us 'Beer is now today as important part of our diets as meat and bread.' He was deadly serious! Fair enough. The beer at the end of the tour was amazing and there a few types of beer to choose from. Even their stout beer was quite nice.
Today I got up and headed just down the road from my hostel to
the Suncorp Stadium, which is Brisbane's main stadium for football (soccer) and both codes of rugby. I went on the tour which was a very reasonable ten bucks. We were taken out into the stands to see the 50,000+ all seater stadium. It was pretty impressive and reminded a bit of St. James Park. We then went down onto the pitch and onto the players bench. The dressing rooms were pretty big with the home one being miles better than the away one. We then moved into my favourite part of the stadium which was the press conference room where I got to sit down with the tv board behind me. The stadium has loads of security cameras even though they have a small percentage of the trouble we have at sporting events. They also have tv cameras in the dressing room. I could not get why the viewing public would want to see that, apparently when the English teams play here they put towels over the cameras. We then walked round all the corporate areas before ending our tour. After I left the stadium I headed to have a look at the man mad beach which is almost in
Handling the media with a smile
Its all speculation as far as I'm concerned the centre of the city by the river. It is pretty cool and was really busy when I got there. I then had a walk along the river over bridge and around the botanical gardens which are pretty nice.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.094s; Tpl: 0.011s; cc: 10; qc: 48; dbt: 0.0553s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb