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Published: October 28th 2015
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So we arrived in Australia in early June on a Working Holiday Visa, the idea was always to settle in Brisbane to enjoy it's all year round warm and sunny climate and take monthly trips out of the city. So in this entry I suppose I'll just talk about Brisbane and add to it as we explore more of the city... most of the trips we have taken out so far have been as weekends so I'll add separate entries for those.
So... Brisbane. Name an Australian City and of course you'll think of Sydney and Melbourne first. But having been to all 3, I can certainly say that Brisbane holds it own. It might not have the sights of Sydney or the history of Melbourne but it does have an outdoors outlook with a great dose of hidden laneway bars, great restaurants and an never-ending rotation of markets through various different parts of the city.
The city centre itself is quite compact due to being hemmed in by the Brisbane River. Anzac Square, the Town Hall and it's 2 Cathedrals are the main sights and it's great to jump on the ferry service (that essentially works as a
scenic river cruise) starting at Storey Bridge at one end and finishing at South Bank, which is one of my favourite parts of the city. South Bank is the entertainment district with the Performing Arts Centre, Museum and Art Gallery all here, but also parklands for casual strolls by the river, lots of bars and restaurants, free music performances by local artist as well as the city's cheapest cinema! It's the focal point for many of the festivals in the city, like the Food Festival has a Night Noodle Market here (the food was awesome!) and for the Brisbane Festival it was one of the best places to view Riverfire. We've spent many a Sunday here so far! Behind South Bank is the West End which is a great foodie area... 3 Monkeys is an awesome South East Asian themed cafe that serves awesome cheesecakes. It also has a Street Food Market every weekend where you move from Pad Thai to Gourmet Burgers, from Korean to dishes made from Plantain, it's pretty cool even if one night I was there they had a singer dressed as Elvis singing 'Wrecking Ball' by Miley Cyrus!
We are living just outside the
city centre in a suburb called Spring Hill, which has some great places to eat, Shout outs go to Jak and Hill for a Sunday breakfast and the International Hotel for great food and even better beer due it's own brewery! Best of all Spring Hill has Roma Street Parkland which we stroll through at least once a week. It's got a great mix of formal gardens, rainforest, waterways and lawns, and is a haven for wildlife with Water Dragons, Rainbow Lorikeets and Possums all calling the park home.
Within the city there are plenty of places to visit within half an hour -
Boondall Wetlands is near the airport and is an awesome area made up of Mangrove forests, swamps and tidal creeks.The best walk is at Nudgee Beach where boardwalks take you through the mangroves and it only takes about an hour.
Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary is... you guessed it... a Koala Sanctuary. Accessed easiest by a boat ride taking you upstream the sanctuary has almost all the Australian wildlife on Amy's list! You can feed Kangaroos and Wallabies and they put on a decent bird show.
Daisy Hill is a large area of
eucalypt forest and is apparently home to number of koalas. The little buggers where in hiding when we visited but we where lucky enough to see a couple of wallabies bounding around. The trails in the forest are awesome, we picked one that took close to 3 hours. It was a beautiful sunny day when we went so the sunlight filtered through the trees and the birds sang!
and Mt Cootha which is another forest reserve really close to the city. This one has the bonus of centring round a hill where from the top there is a lookout giving great views of the city and down to the ocean. At the lookout is a cafe serving decent pizzas for lunch! From the city I'd recommend getting the bus to the top, stopping at the cafe and then taking the walk down to the Botanic gardens. The walk is pretty much all down hill and then you can get the bus back to the city! We've made the journey to the top at night time as well and the view is even more spectacular.
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