I hadn’t planned for being in Brisbane, it came as a consequence of lacking options for getting out of Alice Springs and the plane was at least going East which I felt was going to hold the last three weeks of my Australia tour.
Anna from Italy joined me on the flight to Brisbane. It amazes me the confidence of kids, even when travelling alone. Anna has 2 weeks left then flies home to Mama and Papa in Northern Italy after being away for 9 months, before starting University in September. She has backpacked her way around New Zealand and Australia with half of the baggage weight that I have.
Into Brisbane on a flight which I couldn’t finish the Movie ‘Les Miserable’, which as usual was leaving me with a lump in my throat. A beautiful story of love, hope and passion. Anyway, I am not Claudia Winkelmann and I am not here to give you movie critiques. Brisbane! A small domestic airport, which means not far to walk. Anna and I walked passed the baggage area, so with a bit of help we were re-directed down an escalator, but despite the intelligence of a 19 year old and the wisdom of a 52 year old, we couldn’t see the natural way out. We could see the belt. We had a quick laugh and then looked for obvious exit signs, which were there but not fitting our logic. Automatic doors opened up at the base of where the escalators had dropped us. I guess you had to be there…
With bags in hands we said our farewells and I headed for a Taxi. My Taxi driver was wearing a turban, so I thought I would go for the friendly conversation. “Forgive me for asking but are you a Sikh?”, he smiled but didnt know what to say as I think he was expecting a shallow follow up comment about his turban. But as I explained that I had been to Amritsar and the Golden Temple, it turned out to be his home town, so his smile got bigger. The Temple was one of my big memories of India and he could see that I was being respectful to his religion, so when I brought up the Wagah Border closing he could see I wasn’t playing with him. $50 lighter after the taxi fare (he smiled when he told me the price too) I was at the Hotel.
The afternoon and evening blended into one, as I hadn’t really got the energy to get out and do any reconnaissance. It can wait for tomorrow. I started playing with the Hotel wifi, which I could see was a bit slow, but the staff were friendly and helpful so I didn’t say anything. I got on with rendering down the hundreds of photos and tried to remember the detail of Uluru which was there, but not necessarily in the right order.
In the morning, I was fairly alert so continued with my Blog and then tried to upload the photos…oops. Remember the line from Jaws “I think we’re going to need a bigger boat!” I was going to need more power in my WiFi. My family and friends had been waiting patiently for the next instalment. I did get some advice from Reception but they advised that their service was only 256k, which in Internet terms is the ‘Turtoise’, I needed the ‘Hare’ on this occasion. They pointed me to the Tourist Office a couple of blocks down and I thought I would plug them for options.
A light breakfast behind me I headed out. I seem to be staying in a business district next to the river, quite pleasant. When you are booking on the fly it is sometimes hard to guage what type of location you will be in. A couple of short blocks down and there it was. Tourist Offices are under played. I think I could count on one hand the number of times I have used one in the UK. They do have a lot of info at their finger tips. For wifi I was guided to try the Brisbane Library. Bang on first time, home run, touchdown, goal. A great service for free. I had 140 photos to upload. While it was doing that I finished my blog and checked for all of the auto corrections that bring up stupid words out of context. Thank you Brisbane Library. It took a while to get everything finalised and ‘published’ and I am away. So now what? The guide says that the South Bank is supposed to be a nice promenade.
As soon as I stepped onto the bridge crossing the river, I got a sense of London Bridge and its crossing of the Thames to our South Bank. A nice promenade, cafes, arts centre and of course a Big Wheel. Their Southbank had been put together for the 1988 Brisbane Expo. Lots of cafe’s, park areas, shade and sun terraces and a huge swimming pool surrounded by a white sandy beach. And really importantly it was being put to good use in the lovely sunshine.
As I write this part of the blog I am at a Bar overlooking the large man made beach and pool with Bars and Cafes all around, right next to river and it dawns on me. To be a great city, you need a great river and a good south bank! My feedback to my birth town Birmingham is to cut a trench that follows the original River Rea about 200 metres wide and link it to the canal network. Sorry for all the neighbourhoods that would disappear and the thousands of homeless but there is nothing like a good beer with a nice view. A bit shallow? OK, make it a deep trench! Brisbane that afternoon was growing on me. I wasn’t expecting it to be this relaxing. Instead of the usual pigeons pecking on the sidewalk there were Curlews strutting around and Black and White birds like large Wagtails.
At that point I realised that I was finally having time to stop and stare, the opposite of the famous poem by William Henry Davies. I urge you to look it up and think what the opposite might feel like. This afternoon in this Bar in Brisbane I am feeling engaged with stuff. The breeze and the noise that it is making, the children splashing in the pool, the colour of the creeping rhododendrums making their way up the curled arches over the walkway of the promenade, the high palm trees saying ‘hi’ to the blue sky, with a city skyscraper background. Friends meeting in the bar and having a few laughs over the most basic of conversations. It is always around us, but we just need time to absorb it and enjoy it. French, German, English, Australian…You have to have time to listen and enjoy everything and everybody.
I spent about 4 hours on this side of the Brisbane River, just watching and walking.
The next day was the same, but I walked off in the opposite direction to see more of city around the bend of the vast river. I was feeling a bit tired as I awoke at 5am to see Aston Villa thrash Sunderland 6-1 but at same time the result gave me a lift for the morning.
The City is a modern one. To think that this was one of the original penal colonies and there are signs of old Victorian buildings, but quickly being hidden by the new Brisbane. A statue of Victoria stands in the centre, but this city is about the new Australia. Towering shiny high rise office blocks that fit well with the river, freeways on stilts that hug the north bank, surrounded to the South by Mountains and the North by Sea. I would say in a snap judgement that this is a nice place to work and live, not to have a vacation.
I make a criss-cross route across their purpose built Pedestrian and Cycle bridge, circle the Beach area and then take the River Catamaran back to my original starting point give or take a half mile. Wherever you look everything seems to fit with each other.
My route also took in the Library again to get my WiFi fix before heading back to the hotel. Back in the Hotel I stopped off in the lounge to check for one further bit of info of the internet, but then had my first run in with the Receptionist over getting access. I could have it for Free in my room, but it isn’t complimentary in public areas. She quite clearly didn’t get that wifi is like water. She was thinking that it was like a fine Malt and something I would pay a premium for. Don’t moan I thought. I just shook me head at her comments. Her colleague offered me the access code that I had been given freely for the last 2 nights. It was poor anyway, so made me pleased that I was moving on. Finally I went up to my room and found that my bedroom had not been tidied by housekeeping that day. Back down to reception, not to complain, just to say I could live with it, if I had my soda’s topped up in the mini bar and fresh towels. Duly arranged. I went back up to find water coming out of a ceiling and a pool on the floor. Back down…I shouldn’t have moaned about the wifi. The wifi man was probably also the plumber and the soda man. I moved room for the last night into a slightly better chambre with a marginally better view. The only issue was that every 20 minutes a buzzer went off in an ajoining wall which woke me about 10 times in the night.
On the morning of my departure I had the invite to respond to a customer survey that everyone gets in rooms but doesn’t fill out. I ended my one with…if you need any more information on running a better wifi you can email me at…
Going downstairs, I was greeted by the same awkward Assistant that played hardball on the wifi. But this was a new day, the Goldfish had obviously circled her bowl and it was all smiles for me this time around. I played along and checked out.
My memory of Brisbane are caught in the photo’s.
I am pleased I stopped off in Brisbane, not for any great tourist reason, but to note that I have visited The City and found it to be quite…well, nice. And as Forrest Gump said “That’s all I have to say about that”.
Dave's Sabbatical 