With just one day to explore Brisbane, Australia’s third-largest city after Sydney and Melbourne, we chose a bike tour so we could take in more of the city than we could have managed on foot.
Our tour began on the south bank, next to the Apollo theatre, currently home to RSC’s production of Roald Dahl’s Matilda which we saw in London’s West End recently. Brisbane’s South Bank does not attract the same crowds as London’s equivalent, but it is an equally nice area, with a wide pedestrian walkway, several docks for river cruise boats, and, uniquely, an artificial river-side beach, complete with sand, palm trees, a team of life-guards and life-saving classes for the Little Nippers!
Next stop: Kangaroo Point, with excellent views across to the CBD on the north bank. This is the site of a former quarry, though the only sign of this today is some cliffs that are regularly used for climbing and abseiling by city workers seeking a brief escape from the rat race.
Further along the south bank we crossed the Story Bridge. Bearing a striking resemblance to the Sydney Harbour Bridge, this is one of only three locations in the southern hemisphere – the other two being Sydney and Auckland – offering a “bridge climb” attraction.
Brisbane has its roots in agriculture, and on the other side of the bridge we found ourselves in the New Farm area, so-called because this is the former site of the second major farm to be established in Brisbane after the first – now the location for Brisbane’s botanical gardens – was out-grown.
New Farm is now an affluent residential area and home to Abbot Street, officially Brisbane’s most desirable residential street. Abbot Street is lined with Camphor Laurels which are considered a pest elsewhere in Australia but were planted here by a mysterious Mr Kennedy to provide trees for the local children to climb in.
Continuing our journey north-east, we re-joined the river-bank and passed the old sugar refinery, now converted into highly desirable warehouse-style properties. Next door is the Power House, once a power plant used to supply electricity to the sugar refinery and other industries along the riverbank, but now a very trendy multi-arts centre, with numerous performance spaces and temporary gallery space for visiting art exhibitions.
With temperatures now topping 35 degrees, we took a well-earned rest stop at New Farm Park before continuing along the river bank to Merthyr Park. David, our guide, explained the story behind a mysterious array of eight wooden pillars found here, each containing a glass case displaying a variety of animal remains including snake skin, bone and turtle shell. This installation celebrates Brisbane’s aboriginal fore-fathers who, after hunting in this area, would leave the remains of their catch to let the next group know what to avoid, thus preventing over-hunting of a particular species.
Cycling further along the north bank, we passed the CBD and entered Brisbane’s very picturesque botanical gardens. Here, David introduced us to the Bunya Pine. After 80 years, this tree can produce pine cones that are larger than a pineapple. These contain giant pine nuts which were favoured by the aborigines for their high protein content, and – according to David – make excellent pesto! Every year, the council will harvest the crop of every one of the city’s Bunya’s trees to avoid the serious injury that would result were one of these pine cones to fall on someone’s head!
In its 190 year history, Brisbane has been the victim of three major floods. The most recent was just five years ago, when 14 days of continual rainfall resulted in the breaching of several major dams around the city. David was a resident of Brisbane during the 2011 flood, and from his description of the widespread devastation caused, it is remarkable that only 16 lives were lost, and that so little evidence of this event can now be seen. The Botanic Gardens contains a memorial to the victims of all three floods, marking the height that flood waters reached on each occasion.
Once out of the gardens, we crossed back over the river via the People’s Bridge, a very striking pedestrian bridge which reminded me of London’s Millennium Bridge. Soon, we were back on the South Bank, at the end of an enjoyable (if a little too hot) four-hour tour.
From this very brief introduction, Brisbane appears to be a great place to live, provided that the year-round hot temperatures don’t put you off! It’s clean, and very pedestrian friendly, with the very-positive legacy of the Expo of ’88 being the huge amount of modernisation that has taken place right along the riverbank (both north and south of the river), and elsewhere. Though there is no metro system, many of the river services are free, and a light rail / tram system is under construction. House prices are reasonably affordable, too.
I think we’ll be back.
