"Beautiful one day, Perfect the next! " a Brisbane Travel Page by Ramonq

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South Bank beach

City along Brisbane river

Most people think that Brisbane, Queensland's capital, is a coastal city. It's actually a little bit inland and it is traversed by the Brisbane River which acts as the city's playground. Brisbane calls itself the River City and much of its development seem to focus around the river. The highlight of a Brisbane trip would be a relaxing cruise around the bendy river on a public ferry and observe the daily goings-on of this fluvial city. New high-rise office buildings and condominiums are going up in the CBD to reflect Brisbane's growing commercial success. But Brisbane has managed to maintain the many parks and gardens that dot the area.

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There have been lots of re-development along the southern river bank across the CBD. Known as the South Bank, the area has become the recreational and entertainment section of Brisbane. Once a neglected industrial corner, South Bank has been transformed into a pleasant promenade for Brisbane families and tourists. At South Bank, there are parks, pubs, entertainment complexes, museums and playgrounds, enough diversions to fill up a day. There's even an artificial white-sand beach complete with a professional lifeguard! Only in Queensland.

Approaching a population of 2 million, it's hard to imagine that modern affluent Brisbane was once a harsh penal colony in the 1820's, when Sir Thomas Brisbane, then Governor of the young colony of New South Wales, established the prison there. It was a cruel place, so cruel that the commandant was eventually murdered because of his sadistic nature. The only convict-era reminder of Brisbane that's still standing, is a windmill which is used to grind corn and it was manually powered by the convicts using a treadmill. By the 1840's Brisbane became a free settlement when most of the surviving convicts were returned to Sydney.

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Queensland separated from New South Wales in 1859 and Brisbane became the natural choice as the new state's capital. The town slowly evolved into a city befitting a state capital. Public works such as the tramways, railways, telegraph, and parks came with the Industrial Revolution, and Brisbane soon had a magnificent Town Hall and a Legislative building. During WW2, many American, Australian and British troops were based in Brisbane. The city has become the nation's third largest until the present time and by the 1980's many highrise buildings have sprouted in time with the city's hosting of the World Expo.

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Towards the future

The Brisbane CBD is centred around a "peninsula" facing the river bend. The streets are easy to navigate because they are laid out in a grid pattern and the main commercial street is Queen Street, a pedestrian mall which is lined with shops and cafes. At the tip of the "peninsula" is a well-maintained botanic garden displaying certain flora that's unique in Queensland. Many of Brisbane's inner suburbs are slowly being gentrified. The old wooden houses on stilts called "Queenslanders" found in many of the inner suburbs, are a prized possession because of their heritage value and they are specifically designed for semi-tropical weather.

The Brisbane region is one of Australia's fastest growing centre. Blessed with a great climate, many southerners from Sydney and Melbourne have moved to the city to take advantage of the less harried lifestyle and its pleasant weather. The city is expanding in every direction especially southwards towards the Gold Coast region, and there will come a time when Surfer's Paradise will just be one of Brisbane's suburb. All these population shifts will turn it into another crowded stressful city, as part of its growing sophistication, which defeats the purpose of escaping the rat race in the first place. But at least the great weather will remain the same.