Though the city is (obviously) spelled Brisbane, because everyone pronounces it "Brisbn" I decided that was an appropriate title for this post.
Sarah and I drove from Noosa Heads to Brisbane yesterday morning. The drive was quick – just under two hours – and we arrived just in time for Sunday brunch. We left the car and our bags at our hotel and walked across the Brisbane River to The Gunshop Café. The food was tasty but we were both more amazed by the similarities to Brooklyn. We’d heard that Brisbane is Australia’s “hip” city, but we didn’t think we’d be inundated with so many hipsters after only an hour in the city!
The rest of the day turned into a pretty lazy Sunday for us. We strolled back to our hotel slowly, stopping at a few shops along the way, then lounged at our hotel’s pool for a few hours before having an early dinner. We’d planned on a full day of sightseeing in Brisbane on Monday so we both felt okay about our slower Sunday schedule.
Though we were very well rested this morning, our first stop was still to grab a morning coffee. Sarah was very excited that there is a Starbucks not far from our hotel because we were able to get “real” iced coffee (which is to say, without ice cream). Caffeinated (but not overloaded with sugar!), we walked over to Roma Street Park to check it out. The park is very clean and we enjoyed seeing all the tropical plants they had on display. Also, this park is apparently a pretty comfortable home for lizards – they were everywhere! (And pretty tame too.)
One of the gardens in the park.
The pond with the city in the background.
Sarah made a friend in the park…
After strolling around for a few hours, we grabbed a quick lunch at a café near the park then walked toward the city center to rent a bike from Brisbane’s version of Citi Bikes, CityCycle. We rode our bikes mostly along the bike paths near the river, stopping to take a few pictures along the way.
Story Bridge over the Brisbane River.
Sarah on her bike.
Kurilpa Bridge, famous for its unique design as the world’s largest hybrid tensegrity bridge.
Sarah had to run into frame in order for me to get a solo shot of her in front of this sign near the Queensland Performing Arts Center.
Once we’d walked and rode around as much of the city as we could take in one day, we headed back to our hotel to get our car to drive up to the lookout at Mount Coot-Tha. This spot is a pretty popular tourist attraction to watch either the sunrise or sunset over Brisbane. Given that the sun rose at 4:45am this morning, we decided to visit for sunset. We had a great view of the city, though we both left thinking that the sunrise would probably have been better…
The sun was setting behind us – so the sunrise over the city is probably a little better in the morning. Oh well, we’re still happy we got this view!
We both realized how hungry we were once the sun had set so we decided to grab some Japanese food for dinner at Taro’s Ramen & Café. The food was great and we both concluded that one of the best culinary take-aways from our trip will be how much we really like Japanese food! We both got ramen and shared some gyoza. Tomorrow we drive further south to Byron Bay for some additional beach time.