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Published: November 18th 2013
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Breakfast with a view
Note the weather conditions So the question is, how do you do Brisbane in a day? Having done a bit of research we decided it was to do a river trip from south bank followed by a walk around the famous botanical gardens.
We started with breakfast at home, English muffins bought from the supermarket yesterday. It was a glorious morning so we had brekkie on the balcony overlooking our fab view. Great start to the day although on the news we noticed that we missed the Aussie cricket team appearance at the Queen Street Mall, only 10 mins away. Not sure we would have been welcome! The English team arrived yesterday but we haven't seen them on our travels - though we did see the Gabba in the distance.
And then a stroll to the jetty. We were staying in Brisbane CBD so we crossed on the pedestrian bridge next to us into the South Bank. This seems to be the leisure heart of the city although still missing enough restaurants to truly get that title. We were early so we strolled further down, the walk runs parallel to the Brisbane river and came across their 'beach'. This is strangely called 'Streets
beach' and is a man made lagoon and paddling pool set up surrounded by sand and a couple of grass banks. Looked very tempting as it was pretty hot and sticky and was already quite busy with lots of yummy mummies with toddlers. Dragging Ian away we headed back to the boat jetty.
The cruise was very gentle and took us down under the Storey bridge and up to Breakfast Creek. What was amazing was the amount of river apartments that line both banks Apparently they sell for millions of dollars as well, sounding like they could beat London prices. Must be lots of cash in Brisbane! They also told us quite a bit about the flood of 2011 which I am ashamed to say I wasn't even aware of. But 21 people died so it was pretty major. I was surprised to see that many of the multimillion dollar apartments are still being built on the floodplain. Not sure how they get insured! What was more surprising was the story of how you can find bull sharks in Brisbane river! Apparently they are quite common with one actually jumping onto a 'city cat' a few years ago. Luckily
we didn't see one but what we did see,to add to the water portfolio, were jellyfish. Really big ones and lots of them! But people still in the water on stand up paddle boards!
Once we had finished the cruise we retraced our steps (more bodies at the beach) and headed to the botanical gardens, crossing the river on yet another pedestrian bridge (there are loads of bridges in Brisbane). On the way we found a river side bar called the Stokehouse and decided to stop for a quick bite to eat for lunch (we've decided to head to the pictures tonight so though we would stoke up early (see what I did there - Stoke....). And from there off to the gardens. Now I am probably going to get into trouble but....... Nice gardens but I sort of feel that there was nothing that special. Obviously we did Sydney's a while ago and I have done some in the UK (Southport being my favourite) and so I wasn't as blown away as some of the trip advisor reviews. But maybe I'm getting a bit travel jaded..... Ian's highlight was getting a photo of me sitting on a bronze
Spaghetti junction
Told you it reminded me of Birmingham! kangaroo statue. You will be glad to know that it didn't make it into my phone and so not on the blog. However he was in one of those moods so you will see some others that a middle aged woman should not have to pose for in public!
By then the weather had started to turn a bit grey so we thought we would head back and maybe try a quick dip in the pool at the apartments. But we have learnt that these storms cone in quick so by the time we got back it was too late for a swim but at least we were inside when the rain hit!
However we are British so we were going to see 'gravity' rain or no rain. Luckily for us it was 'no rain' and we missed getting wet. Quick bite in the food court and then we donned the 3d glasses.
It's not a night out with Ian unless it ends in a dodgy bar with a dodgy singer and this was no exception. But this one was seriously dodgy!
So tomorrow we are off to our final stop in Australia-Melbourne. And I am
SO EXCITED! Not because of the fact it's the poshest hotel we have stayed in thanks to a recommendation from a friend of mine, not because we have some big things planned which I will tell you about later. No, because we are staying 5 days and so, for the first time in 3 weeks, Ian is going to let us FULLY UNPACK! (Pathetic woman! - this was Ian's contribution in case you wondered)
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D MJ Binkley
Dave and Merry Jo Binkley
Brisbane
A fantastic view