Brisbane City Adventures Day 1

On Tuesday it was time for us: off to the city! And this time a real big city. Brisbane, the capital of Queensland, has over 2 million inhabitants and we totally underestimated the hugeness of the city. The largest city we have been to by car so far was Cairns, which had only 134,000 inhabitants. In Perth we didn't have a car yet and got around with public transport. In Brisbane, we once again experienced that a car in the city is much more of an obstacle than a help.

About 15 km before we reached the city center, the 4- to 6-lane streets seemed extremely urban to us. The traffic volume was just as high. Finally arriving in the city, we wanted to drive to the Visitor Centre and get information about the city and accommodations there. But first we had to find a parking space. There were many parking garages and we drove into one. We went in and reversed down the ramp because our car was unfortunately too high. This maximum height board had a height of only 1.83 m!! It was clear that our roof rack would not fit through. While I was reversing down the ramp with two curves, 2 other cars were already waiting below, but fortunately they were smart enough not to drive up. So our search continued. The next parking garage looked tall and so we drove in. At the ticket machine, the prices were displayed and when we read them, we reversed out of this parking garage as well. $11 for 0-20 minutes!!! That means we couldn't even drive in and out right away, because we would have already paid!! An hour there costed $38! That's crazy!! So we had to pay attention to price and height and it was really hard to find something suitable. At some point, we got fed up with it, we parked in a parking garage with a height of 2.20 m and paid $18 for 2 hours. It's a lot of money, but still okay and we just wanted to get some information. Our parking spot was now in the Southbank district and we didn't go to the central visitor center, but the one in this district. On the way there, we could walk along a beautiful promenade along the Brisbane River and had a great view of the skyline. That made up for the chaotic first impression of the city.

In the info center, we got tips on parking and sightseeing, as well as a city map and some flyers for hostels. We noticed through Wikicamps that there are no particularly central caravan parks for cheap accommodation (no wonder with the size of the city) and that we would probably have to stay in a hostel for the time we need to visit the city. Then we found a good offer on Booking.com, where we only had to pay $50 for a double room with light breakfast (white toast and jam) and free parking in a hostel in the Southbank district. Normally this costs $70. And if we had taken two single beds in a shared room, we would also have been at $46, so privacy was definitely worth $4.

So we drove to the hostel, parked our car there, and after a small lunch and a conversation with other hostel residents about sightseeing tips, we walked back to the city. After crossing the Victoria Bridge, we found ourselves in the CBD (Central Business District) of Brisbane. There we took a look at the beautiful Treasury Building, which was built of sandstone and used to house the Ministry of Finance and is now a casino. In Brisbane, there are actually a few old buildings, compared to Australian standards! After that, we strolled through the city, looked at the skyscrapers, a few churches, the shops, and some squares. We let ourselves be guided by our guidebook. At King George Square there was a huge, rather ugly Christmas tree and in general, there was more or less tasteful Christmas decorations in the city.

Although Brisbane is such a big city, the city center is very compact, nestled in a curve of the Brisbane River, and therefore everything can be explored on foot. Our path eventually led us to the pier on Eagle Street, where there were many great restaurants and a jetty for river boats. In the info center, we heard about a free ferry that goes up and down the river, and that's what we wanted to do now. When we arrived at the jetty, a ship was just there and because it was about to leave, we just got on, even though we didn't know if it was the right one. We sailed downstream for quite a while and when a ship with the inscription "Cityhopper" came towards us, we knew that we were on the wrong one, because that was the name of the free ferry. We were on a CityCat boat. So we quickly got off at the next station, but no one noticed our little fare dodging. But now we had to find a way back somehow, and thank god our station was one of the terminals of the Cityhopper, so we only had to wait 20 minutes for the next ship instead of somehow going through the city. The boat trip back was very nice because the sun was just setting and the city was shown in a beautiful light. However, the Cityhopper was much slower than the CityCat, so it took us 45 minutes to get to our landing pier in Southbank. Then we walked back to the hostel on foot.

When we got home, we were pretty tired, made wraps for dinner, took a shower, and then went to bed. The hostel was quite noisy for quite a while, even though it wasn't even the weekend and you should be quiet at 10:00 a.m. But that's how it is in a hostel, we're not used to it with our campsites: D