Brisbane Archives - Two Feet, One World

We kicked off St Paddy’s Day with a visit to the Eagle Farm market – home of amazing breakfast, a huge number of grocery stalls, and a bunch of artsy bits and pieces. The coffee was great, and I loved the colours and variety of stalls.

Amazing poached eggs, rosti and salsa

Lawn bowls is apparently a huge thing for all ages in Australia, and as Emma and Will live super close to a club, we decided to check it out as the first real step in our St Paddy’s Celebrations. Barefoot bowls is certainly not too demanding, even in 35C plus and with the ice in our drinks melting faster than you can say “What a shot!”

Barefoot Bowling at the Boo – nice form Will!

When we’d bowled our ends, we decided to continue the neighbourhood explore with a visit to the Breakfast Creek Hotel. Pubs in Aussie are apparently all called hotels, maybe because they practically live there!? The BCH is one of the grand old ladies of the Brisbane pubs, and is also huge, with heaps of different dining and drinking areas. We chose the Rum Bar, and sampled a couple of delish flavours – one new to us, and an old favourite.

Breakfast Creek Hotel

On the Monday poor Will was back to work, but Emma and I headed out for a few more touristy activities. The view from Mount Coot-tha Botanical Gardens was worth the journey, although the huge variety of plants was slightly lost on us, and we definitely weren’t the target age range for the guided tour. We snuck off on our own and encountered a croc (extremely realistic) and some massive spiders too scary to photograph on our way to the viewing platform.

Croc!

View of Brisbane from Mount Coot-tha

One last look at the city came courtesy of the Wheel of Brisbane, centred on South Bank and with a fantastic 360 view. The operators were apparently feeling generous as we were given well over our allotted four rotations – not entirely to Emma’s delight!

View of the City from the Wheel

I was pleasantly surprised by Brisbane, having had few preconceptions beyond the “Gold Coast” stereotypes before I arrived. The city seemed to celebrate its heritage while also having a great modern vibe, a very interesting and exciting mix.

Thanks for the awesome stay Brisbane!

I visited Brisbane for a long weekend, staying with friends who had moved there in January. Emma and I spent Friday afternoon wandering Chinatown and South Bank. I was hugely impressed with the park and the beach – plenty of people were making the most of their chance to swim and soak up the sun.

South Beach Park and Pools

We followed the river along the cliffs and wound up at the iconic Story Bridge Hotel, just in time to cheer on the Hurricanes rugby team and treat ourselves to a couple of delicious ice-cold ciders.

Brisbane River

We devoted Saturday to a road-trip to the GC – home of the Mozzies*. As Emma and Will hadn’t made it down there yet either, we started at the Spit at the northern end and meandered down the coast, stopping frequently to gawk at the lack of beaches. The Gold Coast has been hit hard by erosion caused by a combination of floods and cyclones, with the result that the sand in many places is only a metre wide and cliff-like, rather than the normal golden expanse.

Broadbeach – not so broad…

We were pleasantly surprised that, far from the concrete strip of high rises and cheap hostels I had been expecting, much of the coastline is protected from the sprawl by green parkland. With playgrounds, BBQ areas, and even exercise machines, there was lots of room for people to enjoy the area, and it meant that the beach didn’t feel like just an extension of the street.

We made our way down to Burleigh Heads Beach to meet Julian, where happily a bit more sand remained, and made the most of the gorgeous sunshine and fun waves. A scrummy late lunch at Govinda’s (my first Hare Krisna cafe!) and a bit more sun time completed our awesome day.