A townscape of water and bridges

It seems to have become a bit of a habit to hop over the ditch to Australia at the start of January. We add some days on to Christmas, and head over for a city break and a bit of heat (although while we were away this time, Wellington had some lovely weather). This year took us to Brisbane – my first trip though Karl had been before for a work.

Brisbane is the third most populous city in Australia, and is situated on the banks of the Brisbane River. The city is named after Sir Thomas Brisbane, who, as it happens, was born in Largs in Scotland (useless fact of the day…). Brisbane has been subject to major flooding over the years, most recently in 2011.

We were staying right next to the Brisbane City Botanic Gardens which run along the side of the Brisbane River. This made an excellent post-flight walk after our early start. The riverside City Botanic Gardens are Brisbane’s original botanic gardens and officially opened in 1855. The current gardens are a combination of the original Botanic Gardens, the Domain (the southern side of Gardens Point) and Queen’s Park.

Being right next to the river, the Botanic Gardens have been flooded nine times between 1870–2011. With this in mind, a new botanic garden at Mount Coot-tha was established in the 1970s. The Brisbane Botanic Gardens are now mainly recreational, though there are still many old trees and rare plants.

At dusk, the lights come on, and the fruit bats come out, ducking and diving and making fantastic silhouettes against the skies.

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