By Brisbane in Queensland is unlike the other Australian cities and especially Adelaide. Sub-tropical, humid, jungle sprouting freely wherever concrete and asphalt give way, it’s a city and it’s a rain forest. Freeways coiling like vines around vertiginous skyscrapers, breathless hills, tortuous streets, the crazily meandering Brisbane River serves as a metaphor for all.
The Rivercat is the way to travel, affording multiple views of the CBD and landmark bridges, passing red stone cliffs, mangrove swamps and multi-million dollar apartments. Eagle Street Pier offers spectacular river-view dining and drinking with spectacular prices, flashy bars and the casino, with a cash-flashing clientele earning Brissie the nickname BrisVegas. Upstream and on the other side, South bank with its city beach and tropical flower trellises offers a more relaxed alternative. Out of town mount Coot-tha has panoramic views of the city and suburbs, the Brisbane River twisting like a giant snake from wild frontier-like hills to Moreton Bay.
Travel out to the suburbs and you will see plenty examples of Queenslander houses, totally constructed from timber and mounted on stilts to allow airflow. Here in the ‘burbs bush turkeys and fruit bats coexist with humans. You fall asleep and wake to a cacophony of curious wildlife.
At this time of year the weather is temperate by day (T-shirt), the cloudless skies rendering the nights cold (take a warm jacket). In the summer, it can be unbearably humid.
Dr D in Oz 