Brisbane, Australia
Today is Wednesday, February 14th (Valentine's Day). Happy Valentine's Day! Yesterday we visited Brisbane, the capital of the state of Queensland and Australia's third largest city. Its first European settlers were the secondary offenders from the Sydney penal colony. Amazing what these penal colonies have become! During WWII Brisbane served as one of General Douglas MacArthur's Pacific headquarters.
The arrival port for Brisbane is about a 45-minute ride from the center of the city. It is a huge industrial port with tall grain silos, related railroad sidings and what looks like an endless parking lot filled with just offloaded foreign cars (thousands of them) waiting to be distributed around Australia. Visually, that initial scene is not at all attractive. Nor is the ride into the city. Brisbane is growing at a very fast rate, and all around there is extensive construction going on, including massive road widening all the way into the city. As our excursion guide was laying on us a bunch of statistics about Brisbane's rapid growth, the high cost of housing, etc., one could only wonder on this rather grim ride into the city, on very flat terrain, what all the shouting was about. What made Brisbane so popular?
All of a sudden, the city skyline came into view, and it is impressive. As we got closer to the city center we began to pass endless numbers of very new looking substantial commercial and residential buildings. I couldn't help notice that, in addition to the usual higher-end auto dealerships like Mercedes-Benz, BMW, Audi and Lexus, we also passed Lamborghini, Bentley, Lotus, Rolls-Royce, Jaguar and Maserati dealerships. So clearly there is considerable wealth there. Brisbane boasts more sunshine than any other Australian capital city and is listed by Lonely Planet as one of the most livable cities in the world. Much of its population growth comes from overseas, principally Asian countries. In the center of the city there are attractive pedestrian shopping malls and arcades. The rather wide Brisbane River runs through the city, and much of the recreational life of the city is centered around the river. There are numerous green spaces, parks and playgrounds along the river, as well as yet another significant botanic garden (that we never got to).
Like the other cities in Australia and those in New Zealand that we have visited, Brisbane likes its monuments, statues and war memorials. Not a surprise given the outsized contribution these places made to the Allied campaign in both world wars.
Because of time constraints, I'm going to randomly post a number of photographs of downtown Brisbane without further elaboration. The one from a particularly higher (and hazy) elevation point is from the Mt. Coot-tha Lookout on the outskirts of the city.
I wouldn't suggest to anyone that they should put Brisbane on their bucket list as a destination not to be missed, but I'm glad we got to see it as part of our cruise up the eastern coast of Australia. We are currently cruising toward Cid Harbor where we will anchor tomorrow for a part-day visit to Hamilton Island located in the Great Barrier Reef area. We now have onboard a so-called reef pilot to guide the ship along and through the entire length of the GBR. This morning he gave one of three lectures he will deliver over the next couple of days on the GBR which he said we entered to its east at about 4 a.m. today.
The arrival port for Brisbane is about a 45-minute ride from the center of the city. It is a huge industrial port with tall grain silos, related railroad sidings and what looks like an endless parking lot filled with just offloaded foreign cars (thousands of them) waiting to be distributed around Australia. Visually, that initial scene is not at all attractive. Nor is the ride into the city. Brisbane is growing at a very fast rate, and all around there is extensive construction going on, including massive road widening all the way into the city. As our excursion guide was laying on us a bunch of statistics about Brisbane's rapid growth, the high cost of housing, etc., one could only wonder on this rather grim ride into the city, on very flat terrain, what all the shouting was about. What made Brisbane so popular?
All of a sudden, the city skyline came into view, and it is impressive. As we got closer to the city center we began to pass endless numbers of very new looking substantial commercial and residential buildings. I couldn't help notice that, in addition to the usual higher-end auto dealerships like Mercedes-Benz, BMW, Audi and Lexus, we also passed Lamborghini, Bentley, Lotus, Rolls-Royce, Jaguar and Maserati dealerships. So clearly there is considerable wealth there. Brisbane boasts more sunshine than any other Australian capital city and is listed by Lonely Planet as one of the most livable cities in the world. Much of its population growth comes from overseas, principally Asian countries. In the center of the city there are attractive pedestrian shopping malls and arcades. The rather wide Brisbane River runs through the city, and much of the recreational life of the city is centered around the river. There are numerous green spaces, parks and playgrounds along the river, as well as yet another significant botanic garden (that we never got to).
Like the other cities in Australia and those in New Zealand that we have visited, Brisbane likes its monuments, statues and war memorials. Not a surprise given the outsized contribution these places made to the Allied campaign in both world wars.
Because of time constraints, I'm going to randomly post a number of photographs of downtown Brisbane without further elaboration. The one from a particularly higher (and hazy) elevation point is from the Mt. Coot-tha Lookout on the outskirts of the city.
I wouldn't suggest to anyone that they should put Brisbane on their bucket list as a destination not to be missed, but I'm glad we got to see it as part of our cruise up the eastern coast of Australia. We are currently cruising toward Cid Harbor where we will anchor tomorrow for a part-day visit to Hamilton Island located in the Great Barrier Reef area. We now have onboard a so-called reef pilot to guide the ship along and through the entire length of the GBR. This morning he gave one of three lectures he will deliver over the next couple of days on the GBR which he said we entered to its east at about 4 a.m. today.
Your photos continue to amaze us. Thank you
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