East Coast Travels - Brisbane 2

I've split up my Brisbane posts into two since I've got so many photos! Click here to view the other post.

On our last full day in Brisbane, the 11th of May, we booked a helicopter with V2 (V squared). I saw a Scoopon a few weeks back for a helicopter ride over Brisbane CBD for only $99, I’ve always wanted to go on a helicopter ride and always get put off by how incredibly expensive it is, so for $99 I had to do it! We took a taxi to Archerfield - which showed up with a flat tire.... great - had a super quick 5 minute chat about the helicopter and then we went up in the air! It wasn’t scary at all, the helicopter rose really slowly, you could hardly feel that it was off the ground! we then started flying towards the CBD. We got really close to everything and I took some amazing photos! We also bought a video of our flight. The flight was only 15 minutes, but it was totally worth it!

CBD in the Distance.

Southbank & Streets Beach to the far right.

Stadium

CBD and proof we're in a helicopter!

All the bridges, the CBD and Southbank!

That evening we had some dinner at Grill’d, the best burger place in Australia (tied with Mos Burger, but we’ve only gone there twice...) and then had a stroll along the Southbank to Kangaroo Point. The walk was probably about 2 hours? We crossed the Victoria Bridge and walked along the Southbank, which was beautiful at night too.

The Asian Temple and the ferris wheel were beautifully lit up. We continued our walk past the Goodwill Bridge to Kangaroo Point Cliffs. I took tons of photos of the CBD from there, with exposures up to 30 seconds.

I never really noticed, but Brisbane is such a colourful city! The photo to the left is the only photo I have of both the CBD and the Story Bridge.

We then went up the stairs to the top of the Kangaroo Point Cliffs. They are actually cliffs, it isn’t just a name. During the day there are loads of rockclimbers climbing up the hill, but we went up the stairs. They were exhausting, and when you’re finally at the top there isn’t even a bench!! We had some more amazing views from up there and continued our walk along the river to Story Bridge.

The photo to the left is taken from the Story Bridge. The Story Bridge is one of the three bridges in the world that you can climb over, same as the Sydney Harbour bridge and a third bridge. Although it’s really cool you can climb over this one too, it looked no where near as impressive as the harbour bridge. The lowest point of the bridge is only slightly higher than the pedestrian path so I’m not sure if it would really be worth it... That being said I climbed the Harbour Bridge so nothing can really compare to that. The bridge was beautiful in the evening lit up with bright yellow lights. Again we had some great views of the CBD from there.

We then continued our way along the river back to the edge of the botanic gardens and walked through the CBD back to our hotel in Spring Hill.

On the 12th we left at 13.45 and arrived in Noosa just after 17.00.

Overall Brisbane has been fantastic, but we found that it’s also a little lazy. On saturday evening everything was shut by 17.00 and the following morning we were trying to get some breakfast somewhere but at 10.30 we couldn’t find any place to eat! Maybe we’ve been spoiled in Melbourne! I’m excited to continue on our trip and see some more beaches and less city though.

East Coast Travels - Brisbane 1

8th - 12th May

I've split up my Brisbane posts into two since I've got so many photos! Click here to view the other post.

We left Surfers Paradise at 13.10 and had a very quick ride to Brisbane. It was just over an hour and arrived at Roma Street station at about 14.20. From there we had about a 10-15 minute walk to our hotel in Spring Hill. Note to self: don’t ever stay in a place with the word hill in it. It was such an incredibly steep walk to the hotel, and our huge rucksacks (front and back!) made it even harder.

We stayed at the Metropolitian Motor Inn. I was worried that it was going to be similar to Sydney’s hotel as we’re in a city again and we looked for a hotel that’s about $100 a night. Thankfully it was nothing like in Sydney. The room was an average size, had a balcony and a decent sized bathroom. It didn’t smell weird and there were no cockroaches. The location, other than being on the top of a hill, was great! It was about 15 minutes to the CBD going down Edward Street.

We’ve only been traveling for 9 days and we’re really starting to feel exhausted from moving from place to place so quickly, so we decided to be a bit more relaxed in Brisbane since we’re there for 4 nights. The day we arrived we just had a stroll through the CBD and the shops, had some quick dinner, walked back to the hotel and had an early night in.

Throughout our stay in Brisbane we kind of created our own walking tour, we searched around what the top attractions are and where real walking tours would go past, and based on that we created our own route. We started our tour walking around the CBD shopping areas. These include Adelaide Street, Queen Street Mall, Elizabeth Street, Albert Street and George Street. The streets are all in a big square and in the middle is Queen Street Mall, this is just for pedestrians so no cars. It’s a really spacial street with a few lovely dining places in the middle. There is a huge range of shops in this area. Most of them are affordable like Cotton On, Factorie and that price budget, but in the Queen’s Plaza Shopping Centre you can find Louis Vuitton and Chanel. The CBD is really nice and I feel it’s a little easier to navigate through compared to Sydney or Melbourne.

There is a really nice foodcourt in the Wintergarden centre where we had breakfast and dinner several times. It’s got some cheap yet healthy fast food places including sushi and some delicious Japanese meals. I would definitely recommend staying away from the bus station on the corner of Elizabeth Street and Albert Street. It’s another huge shopping centre but it was overwhelmingly busy when we were there!

We then moved away from the shopping streets and had a closer look at Brisbane architecture. We started off at Anzac Square, a nice little park area surrounded by skyscrapers. From there we crossed the street and walked through a beautiful lane called Market Street. I love how Brisbane’s architecture combines the old and the new, the traditional and the flashy.

We walked to St Stephan’s Cathedral, which was also surrounded by skyscrapers. I have always loved to take photos of abstract buildings, but what I loved about Brisbane is that there were so many mirrored buildings creating some really unique photos. 

We also walked in the other direction to King George Square. Along George Street there are “city roos”, which were really cool! George Square is where a museum is, City Hall, the library and another beautiful but very out of place church. From here you can cross the Victoria Bridge to Southbank. 

Southbank is my favourite place in Brisbane. It’s so relaxed and non-city like! They’ve created a rainforest and an artificial beach called Streets Beach, which I was honestly a bit unsure about, but everything was so beautiful! The rainforest feels like a completely different place, you’re surrounded by nature, trees and huge lizards. The beach was just like a real beach, the sand felt as soft as the sand in Byron Bay and the water was such a crispy clean cold feeling. We actually saw later on that the water is recycled rainwater.

From Southbank we slowly strolled to the Goodwill Bridge and crossed the river to arrive at the edge of the City Botanic Gardens. We first walked along the Mangrove Habitat Walkway. It was a really nice stroll along the river and we walked past some beautiful mangrove trees. The thing that stood out to me the most were the roots, they looked like tons of little sticks sticking out of the ground. 

As you walk to the edge of the botanic gardens, you’ll have quite a nice view of the Story Bridge. From there we walked into the Botanic Gardens. 

The gardens are much smaller than in Melbourne and Sydney, but they were still beautiful. There was a sign showing the flood levels in 1974 and 2011, it’s unbelievable how high the water level rose! They also had more of the huge lizards in the gardens as well as bush turkeys and the large birds we saw in Sydney.