Our Wicked Walkabout

Brisbane, a city of a winding river, hot streets, lovely cool wharf, and a rather modern classic cathedral. They finished building it in 2009, 108 years after they started, in true cathedral style.

Anyway, getting ahead of myself.

We (as always) had a leisurely breakfast, and headed out for today’s wander.

The bus to downtown was right outside the RV park, and they conveniently provide a schedule on the back of the park map.

Of course, they did not mention how to pay for your fare.

So, first faux pas, we headed to the bus stop on our side of the road, and watched as the bus pulled away from the stop….

So we waited…

As we we were waiting a bus came on the other side. I suddenly realize we were on the wrong side.

The bus driver also realized we were on the wrong side, so opened her window and called us over! First wow! Friendly bus driver.

We had been told that the busses were tap on tap off, like Sydney… but they are not… and they don’t take cash…

Again, the amazing bus driver said, no problem, just buy a ticket when you get off downtown. 😳😳😳😳😳

I was gobsmacked! Super friendly, and super helpful!

So we headed downtown.

We got off at the Queen street bus stop! Ok, this was another different adventure. It was under a complicated bus tunnel system.

We made note of the stop number. And headed out to figure out how to buy our return ticket.

We asked the first kiosk person we saw… she was kinda clueless, but knew that the newsshop across the street sold bus passes.. so we headed there. He did not sell passes, but he did know how to buy a day ticket. So now we knew.

We could safely head out on our city wander!

We wandered down the street amazed by the legacy architecture, interspersed with the modern

We headed along the wharf towards our target.

We left the wharf at the above tree, which was on the grounds of the old custom house

And headed over to the Anglican Cathedral

We were greeted as we entered by a group that were having their coffee time, something that happens every Wednesday, and one member of the volunteers who enthusiastically told us of the history of the building.

The first part was started in 1901, the second was completed in 1968 (a very good year!) and the last part was started in 1989, and finished in 2009. The volunteer told us how he remembered as a child it being just an ugly wall facing the street.

When we looked around it was clear where the lines were, slightly different stones, but at first glance, seamless. But then that is the story of every cathedral. Built in stages.

It was also clearly a busy and vibrant community, with a Sunday school…And many activities.

I was impressed.

From there we headed back to the wharf, and the famous Howard Smith pier.

Well… honestly, they were a disappointment.

But we did see a beer can Christmas tree

We then headed back along the wharf, to where we started, and had a bevie and food, along with a loud office Christmas party.. it was rather surreal to be so hot and sweaty, sitting in an open air restaurant with people with reindeer antlers and Christmas cracker hats

We headed back to the mall, and bought our tickets for the bus, with a lot of help from the friendly bus helper staff… big shoutout to the public transportation team in Brisbane.. you are the best I have ever experienced. And only 50cents to ride anywhere!

You know what we did next… headed to the pool!