Brisbane calling

After the cool winter weather of Victoria, we were excited to be in the warmer Queensland.  We had caught an early morning flight from Melbourne to Brisbane and picked up a rental car for the drive up the coast to Cairns.    Brisbane struck us immediately with its warm and lightly humid climate, and the generally relaxed demeanour of the drivers and people we met. It felt like a pleasant city and we were very much looking forward to exploring it. However we first needed to navigate the roads which proved a lot more challenging than we had expected. It seems that each state has developed its own set of road signs and Queenslands were as eccentric as we'd found so far. Our favourite was a huge red sign that said "Wrong Way. Go Back" typically on the on ramp to a road when taken from the wrong side. It was not that the sign warned us of the wrong direction, but the lunacy of trying to do a three point turn on a narrow on-ramp. 

We were based with Mandy and Duncan Goodyear for a few days and one of the first things we did was head up Mt Coot-tha with Mandy for a fantastic view over the city and a nice way to orientate ourselves.

Lucy and Mandy looking down on Brisbane.

It was wonderful for Geoff to meet the Goodyears and for Lucy to see them again, we were treated to a very wholesome barbeque meal and lots of quasi-KZN/Queensland humour.

We were lucky to meet up with many friends while we were in Brisbane.  Matt and Alicia Reid lived in Cape Town for 15 months with their children Isabel and Franklin in 2010.  Matt had lived in Brisbane most of his life and could tell us a lot about the place, while both could explain to us a number of our questions about Australia, and Queensland.  Geoff did his masters at UCT together with Mauritian Johann Poinappen and we caught up with him and his wife Natasha.  They both work in the water industry and it was interesting to get a feel for their niche aspects of the water sector.  For Lucy, a highlight was visiting Barry and Dell Nichol who are family friends of the Nortons and have moved to Brisbane to live close to their son.  It was great for Geoff to get to know them better and we had a lovely afternoon relaxing in their home.  We really appreciated Mandy and Duncan's hospitality and the ability to make ourselves at home in their house.

Geoff, Johan and Natasha

Lucy with Barry and Dell

We spent some time exploring downtown Brisbane.  Brisbane was badly affected by the devastating floods in 2011when the river came down 4,5m higher than normal and 20 000 homes were inundated in the city alone!  By the time we arrived, about 18 months later, there was hardly any evidence of the disaster.  We headed into the city centre with grand ambitions of seeing as much of the city as possible. We discovered the Queensland museum and absorbed a few fascinating hours in the lobby area where a display on Queensland trivia kept us entertained. 

Do you know why most houses in Queensland are built of wood and on stilts? Could you identify a coastal taipan (Australias most lethal snake) or a cane frog (yuck!)? Or have you ever heard of the Surfers Paradise meter maids - who paraded the streets in gold bikinis? Yes, the exhibit got our attention too! Fearing we wouldn't progress far on our tour of Brisbane we headed across to the Queensland art gallery which we had learnt exhibited the works of Sidney Nolan, an Australian artist Lucy had read about. Alas the Prado had taken over the museum and the australiana was temporarily in storage.

In 1928 Bert Hinkler (from Bundaberg, Queensland) flew this tiny plane from London (UK) to Darwin in Northern Australia.  The 18 000km journey took him 15 days and 128 hours of flying.  Her name was the Avian Cirrus.

We continued on to the much talked about South Bank area. The Brisbane River meanders through Brisbane in extravagant bends and the local architecture makes full use of it by creating huge public spaces bordering the water. 

One of the many bridges over the river to downtown Brisbane.

The Nepalese Peace Pagoda on the South Bank.

The Arbor - a lovely avenue along the length of the South Bank.

The fresh water lagoon was lovely to cool down in - all set about with palm trees.

The kids playgrounds not only had slides and swings, but awesome climbing trees too!

We were amazed to see mangroves growing on the banks of the river in the middle of the city!

We headed across to the City Botanic Gardens which are, as all of them in Australia are, free to the public.  There is an informative boardwalk through the mangroves on the bank of the river, some impressive trees over 150 years old and many 'rooty' figs with masses of trunk like roots.

The branch of this fig tree had been cut off from the main tree and was growing just on the roots that it had put down from the branch.

We found the grey mangroves fascinating and were amazed to find the big salt crystals that the tree exudes from the underside of the leaves.

The shape of the flowers of some of the flowering gums are so unusual and simple.

It would appear Lucy had this tree in mind when deciding her outfit for the day!

Geoff found a friend in the gardens...

... these 'dragons' are really crazy looking and we could get quite close to them.

Three kookaburras sitting on a mirrored sculpture in the gardens.

One of the HUGE Indian fig trees.

Geoff spent a day at the Aurecon office downtown and visited one of the three water reclaimation plants in the city. Unfortunately two of the plants are being mothballed as their water is not deemed acceptable by the present provincial political powers at be - politics is fickle all over the world. The remaining one, which he visited supplies purified sewage water to the two coal power stations north of Brisbane, which is more acceptable, but can be diverted to the drinking water system if the need ever arises in future droughts.  Lucy enjoyed exploring more of the gardens and using the free WiFi available an a section of the garden while sitting on the lawn under beautiful trees. 

We headed up to the Mt Coot-tha Botanic Gardens which were created in the 1970's to display all the plant collections in a place safe from flooding.  We really enjoyed getting our first taste of Humid Tropic forests and to see some of the indigenous Australian flora flowering.

This Wattled Plover hid her baby in her chest feathers when we came near.  You can just see the chick's yellow beak sticking out from under the mom's wing and one of its feet.

Now we know why they're called Stag Horn Ferns!

So exotic yet so familiar......

The Banya Pine - their cones weigh approximately 10kg when ripe and the local  Aboriginal people would come from far and wide for large gatherings (and feasts) every 3 or 4 years when these pines had their crop.

In the arboretum we found this Kapok Tree (Ceiba pentandra) with amazing bark.  We figured it could inflict some serious pain!

And then we hit the road north.  Cairns was 1780km away and we had 6 days.....