i walked to the nearest pier and jumped on the city cat, the water transportation that connects brisbane to all of the suburbs. great big blue catamarans that stop on both sides of the brisbane river. the more i see of this city the more i think its the australian equivalent of portland. its beautiful, has every mode of public transportation possible, most of it environmentally friendly, bikes for rent everywhere, bike and walking paths that link all of the suburbs, and super clean. buses, rails, trains, and what makes it so much better is that everyone uses them. there is hardly any traffic anywhere.
i rode the cat for about 20 minutes to south bank and walked the botanical gardens. beautiful stuff, not alot different from kauai. across the river is downtown brisbane, i think there are 12 bridges downtown, all of them pedestrian friendly. there's one that you can climb but i think i might save that adventure for the sydney harbor bridge next week.
the queens outdoor mall was incredible. several blocks in the middle of downtown, several stories tall, nothing but shops and restaurants. street musicians, people watching and no cars allowed. i have no need to shop but it was a great place to sit and watch. apparently there's a fashion trend here for women that includes wearing shorts that go way up high but leave your ass cheeks hanging out a bit. it also seems that this trend is only for women that you'd have no interest in looking at their ass cheeks.
for the most part, though, people are pretty metro, and every kind of city style represented. fairly easy to tell who's a tourist and who's not.
i found a bus called 'city sights' and hopped on. there are 19 stops that cover all of brisbane and surrounding areas and a tour guide. i'm not a huge fan of bus tours but it was a great way to see everything in a couple hours and find places i might want to go back to. the coolest stop was the mount coot-tha lookout. coot-tha means 'the place of wild honey' in aboriginal and its 287 meters above sea level, the highest point in queensland. there's a restaurant, a cafe, and a lookout platform. i stopped there and ate ice cream.
brisbane is possibly the cleanest place i've ever been. i'm not sure i saw a piece of trash anywhere. the oldest buildings aren't very old (mid 1800s i think) so it might be the prettiest modern city i've ever seen. alot of the older buildings have 'convict built' signs, and all the streets in one direction have girls names, perpendicular are boys names.
after the city tour i walked back down to south bank and rode the ginormous ferris wheel by the river. i'm not entirely sure it was worth the money but it was pretty cool. each of the cars was enclosed with air conditioning and a taped guide pointing out the sites and the view was spectacular. i think i did all of the major touristy crap in one day.
i have one more day here and i think that's enough. i have almost a week in sydney coming up (yay for new years fireworks!) and then off to find sea dragons and the barrier reef. but if i wanted to live in a city this might be the one i picked.
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| brisbane from mt coot-tha |
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