Brisbane Briefly (by boat)
I went to Brisbane this week for the ANSOG (Australia and New Zealand School of Government) conference, which was really excellent - I've picked up lots of good ideas to take back to work and try to inflict upon my team! However, this blog is not about work - it's about travel, food, and fun. You know, stuff that makes me seem like I have a life and am a cool person to hang out with or something. So, no more about work! Onto the rest!
Having caught the red-eye over from Wellington to make it in time for the first session of the conference, we had time to kill until we could be let into our hotel rooms. So my workmate and I went on a tour-cruise of the Brisbane river.
The River Tour boat - a lovely way to spend a couple of hours on the river. Especially nice to be able to have a bit of a cool breeze over the hottest part of the day. The tour was good too - nice way to get a bit familiar with the city, and to find out about some of the history. Brisbane started as a penal colony, and there were some good stories about life in the penal colony, such as how convicts used to be punished by being sent to work the windmill - the mechanism which was supposed to have powered the windmill didn't work, so they used convict power instead.
Paddleboat at Eagle Pier - where all the fanciest restaurants are. We couldn't afford to eat here. As a side note, eating out in Australia did seem to be a bit expensive - but maybe it's just being a tourist in the CBD, and not knowing where to go for cheap and choice foods.
The old Customs House. Pretty! Overall Brisbane was quite a pretty city - once you got used to the colour of the river.
Massive old wool sheds along the river - note the rows of apartments in front of them. All the wool sheds have now also been converted into apartments. The apartments in the front, our tour guide told us, have a going price of about $4m. That's a lot of money to live that close to the flood plain... This area was previously all industrial, with rail and stock yards where the apartments are now.
Prawn trawler. Apparently there are still fish in the river - even though it's such an icky brown colour. There was quite a lot of dredging of the river since colonial settlement of the area right up to 1997, which is part of the reason for the colour. We were told about the prevalence of bullsharks in the river - part of the reason that swimming in the river's not really a good idea (the other reason being it's too polluted).
An enormous pink mansion - built in the 80s, possibly after someone read Pride and Predjudice... Apparently it has always been pink. The amount of wealth lining the river was pretty incredible.
The Story Bridge - built during the depression era to stimulate Brisbane's economy. Named after a civil servant. It was an ongoing thing in the tour commentary, this naming things after civil servants. I wonder what I can convince someone to name after me?
Kangaroo Point Cliffs - originally the site of a quarry. Good rock climbing here apparently. Also close to a hospital.
Brisbane's South Bank - with ferris wheel in the foreground. This is the part of Brisbane where all the big museums and entertainment centres are - and the site of Expo 88 (on which more later). It's where the Conference was, in this enormous conference centre which felt like it was as big as a major international airport. You could easily hold three or four different big conferences there with no chance of overlapping delegates. Also in South Bank was the Streets Beach - an artificial beach with golden sands, clean, clear water for swimming in, a lifeguard on duty and a corporate sponsor.
