Australia - Brisbane

First impressions... it's an alien world. Well most cities are, to us, but this one is unlike any other city we have ever visited.

Seen from a high viewpoint, the clump of tall buildings appear to occupy quite a small area. Once down at street level however the real city emerges.

First of all it is modern. This is a place that has grown from almost nothing in barely a single lifetime. There is little that is more than one hundred years old; none of the buildings, the infrastructure, the roads, everything visible is freshly made.

There are concrete towers and steel bridges everywhere you look and this sense of fresh youthfulness seems to be mirrored in the age of the people visiting or living there. If there is an older population do they feel, like us, somewhat out of their comfort zone?

Then there's this, a picture taken from the same spot as the one above but looking in another direction. This is a bathing area right in the centre of the city, completely free for anyone to use, with lifeguards and showers thrown in. Just strip off down to your swimmers and wade in. Although there's clearly an emphasis on providing this facility for children, there is nothing preventing anyone of any age from spending all day splashing about there, all at the expense of the city.

Of course the Brisbane climate does have a lot to do with this. We were there coming into autumn but it was at least 27°C every day. This explains the city dress code, shorts and T-shirt for the blokes and as much skin as possible being exposed by many of the female gender, far more than we have ever encountered before. Of course much of this skin, on both genders, was darkened with tattoos, but this is not something unique to Brisbane, just more visible.

On our first day in the city we visited a 'wildlife park', which we might refer to as a zoo. 

Whilst this opportunity to observe Australia's animals was interesting, seeing so many in cages was unsettling for us all. Just one area, a large field, was home to an uncaged population of kangaroos and wallabies, these animals clearly having become acclimatised to putting up with humans in close proximity, although perhaps not enjoying it. For us this was followed by an afternoon dip in the sea and later a meal out in the city eating some excellent Greek food.

 

On our second afternoon in the city we hopped on a ferry for a sightseeing tour along the Brisbane river.

Once again we were amazed to discover that this too was free; you can cruise up and down all day if you want.

Of course Brisbane does provide plenty of opportunity to spend money should you be tempted. Most of the streets near where we were staying were lined with shops and restaurants, clearly catering for tourists and holidaymakers. Walking about though you had to stay alert, ready for the electric scooter whizzing up behind you. These things were everywhere, available for hire, and parked randomly on the pavements. Just use the app on your phone to wake one up, jump on and zoom off along the pavement or into the road. How on earth there aren't more casualties is mystifying but then this is just the perspective of someone who has been around more years than most Brisbane-ites.

Oh, one last positive thing. The Brisbane graffiti is better than anything we've seen before.

Finally the Uber cab to the airport brought our holiday to a conclusion. The long and painful journey around the globe in a plane awaited us, the in-flight movies doing little to take the mind off the hours of sitting still with the roar of the engines in our ears.