Ginger Without Borders

Although the kind lady at the desk of the Hotel Diana allowed us to check-in early, we still needed to wait a couple of hours before our room would finish being cleaned. Since we had the time, we decided to do our usual and explore the surrounding area. The desk lady gave us the directions to a nearby urban park called South Bank Parklands and we headed out into the cool brisk air of morning in Brisbane. Now before I continue my story, I have to provide what Lena really hates – a history lesson.

Brisbane is third largest city in Australia with approximately 2.5 million residents. It is built on a peninsula about 9 miles from the sea where the Brisbane River curves around what has become the city center. Brisbane was founded in 1799 as a penal colony for Sydney when Sydney changed from a penal colony of its own to a settlement for emancipated convicts. Unlike Sydney though, Brisbane’s region had rich natural resources like fishing and timber and good farmland, so it developed quickly and this success was rewarded by being named a “free settlement” in 1838. South Bank was the original business center of this new settlement until major floods in 1893 forced the inhabitants to move the business center to higher ground on the cliffs of the north side of the river. South Bank then went into severe decline until the 1970’s when the derelict areas were torn down for the development of the Queensland Art and History Museums and a Performing Arts Center. In 1988, the remaining parklands along the river bank became the site of World Expo 88, one of the last successful world expositions. When the Expo ended, government officials planned to commercially develop the parklands but the public successfully lobbied for them to remain a parkland open to the public. They also kept the 197 foot tall Ferris wheel built for the Expo, named the Wheel of Brisbane (Australians are apparently not very inventive when naming things, like the Great Barrier Reef) and added open air event spaces, kids playgrounds, a 2,000 seat covered amphitheater, and lots of walking trails along the river and through the trees of the park. The park has become quite the center of the active life that the Australians love.

Our favorite features of the Park is the Streets Beach (again, literally named after the sponsor, Streets Ice Cream). It is half an acre of free form concrete surrounded by tons of sand from the Bay 9 miles away. While the water is chlorinated, the feel is definitely of a beach. Our lovely lady lifeguards explained “We are too far from a real beach, so we made our own, without the nasty creatures of our real beach.”

The park has the river on one side and the city side has developed into the hotest dining and entertainment section of Brisbane. As you can see above, the park is on one side of the road and open air cafes (Dawn having Chai Latte on the left) and quality restaurants of all types line the other side.

At the base of the Park is a pedestrian bridge that connects South Bank to the southern tip of the city center where you also find Brisbane’s 49 acre Botanic Gardens. The river curves around the city center to form the peninsula and the Botanic Gardens covers the tip of that peninsula. The most interesting part of the picture above is the bicycle lanes in the center and the pedestrian lanes on each side. And no, the image is not reversed, they really do walk on the left side. There are bike lanes all over this lovely place (marked in blue as they cross the intersections when the bike lanes are separate from the road and on the roads where the cars have to share the lane with bikes). And there are a lot of bike lanes totally separate from road traffic. At intersections, pedestrians and bicyclists have separate crossing lights.

Since we crossed the International Date Line, we did not have an October 2 (just as our daughter never had her 22nd birthday when she did the same) and therefore missed three meals. We made up one of those with a second breakfast at one of the South Bank cafes. We also had several delightful conversations with locals who seem very ready to strike up a conversation.

We now understand why Lena has such a love of “Brissy” (pronounced Bris-Z), as the locals call this city. For a city of its size, it is remarkably walkable (and I had the opportunity to experience this when I attempted to buy my Vodafone SIM card, but that is another story), the food has been quite good, and the citizens are some of the most helpful and engaging folks we have experienced since we took little red-headed Lena to Ireland during her middle school years. I have run out of space, so the Vodafone tale will have to wait.

PS. Lena, we spent more of your inheritance on a marvelous seafood dinner (yes, we know you don’t like seafood) tonight, and two breakfasts yesterday. And Mom held my hand and did not try to kill me.