Australia’s only tropical city, laid-back, self-assured and capital of its most beautiful state
For a former penal settlement established in 1863 Brisbane has come an awfully long way. From a troubled childhood – frequently bullied by big brothers Melbourne and Sydney – and a largely anonymous youth, ‘Brizzie’ has grown from strength to strength and now stands tall and self-assured in the nation’s great city snapshot. Boasting an almost perfect climate and an enviable lifestyle exemplified by innumerable alfresco restaurants, cafés and outdoor activities Australia’s ‘tropical city’ has every right to revel in its reputation as home base and main focus for an impressive region.
Brisbane’s most obvious feature is its namesake river that slides gently past the business district with its crop of glistening high-rises and the Botanical Gardens planted along its northern bank. As you might expect the river is heavily utilised as a mode of transport with ferries shuttling both up and down and from one side to the other. Scenic walking tracks and cycle-ways connect the various ferry stops and combined they offer a great way to see the sights.
On the southern riverbank is the South Bank parklands. As the site for Expo 88 it is now the city’s greatest tourist magnet complete with numerous cultural attractions and even its own inner city beach. Known as ‘the Lagoon’, it is the city’s most popular outdoor tourist attraction. South Bank is also home to the Queensland Museum (+61 738407555, www.Qmuseum.qld.gov.au; the Queensland Art Gallery and Gallery of Modern Art (+61 738407303, www.qag.qld.gov.au; the Queensland Performing Arts Complex (+61 738407444, www.qpac.com.au), which houses the city’s main theatres and concert halls; and the Queensland Maritime Museum (+61 738445361, www.qmma.ecn.net.au.
To the northeast the Storey Bridge marks the edge of the Central Business District with the Fortitude Valley (referred to as ‘the Valley’) lying just beyond that. The Valley is home of Brisbane’s mini Chinatown and the focus for laid-back cafés during the day and a nightlife the envy of Queensland in its numerous pubs and clubs.
The city centre is fairly easy to negotiate on foot and the best place to start is Queen Street – the region’s shopping utopia – and the location of a rather low-key Visitors’ Information ‘booth’. Key historical attractions within a short stroll include the 1930 City Hall and Museum of Brisbane, with its iconic Italian Renaissance clock tower, which you can access (+61 734038888). Around the corner on George Street and the riverbank is the grand 19th-century façade of the former Treasury Building that now houses the Treasury Casino. To the east beside the Botanical Gardens is the 1868 French Renaissance-style Parliament House (+61 734067562, www.parliament.qld.gov.au), which was commissioned when Queensland was declared a separate colony in 1859.
Local history
Surveyor-General John Oxley first established Brisbane as a penal colony in the 1820s to take the most notorious convicts away from the fast-developing Sydney Cove. The river was named Brisbane by Oxley, in effect, creating the settlement of the same name and what would later become the capital and largest city in the state. Its early growth was assured by the sugar and cotton industries and a short gold rush in the 1860s. Queensland became a separate colony in 1859 with its own parliament sitting for the first time in 1867. Brisbane was proclaimed a city in 1901.
Local politics
With its wealth of natural assets Queensland and its fast-developing tropical capital thrives on the tourist dollar, which has offset the decline in the sugar industry throughout the state. The economy, in particular the consistently booming housing market, is the envy of the nation attracting a new wave of immigrants from interstate and overseas all looking to the Brisbane region as opposed to Sydney or Melbourne for new opportunities and the coast for the classic Australian sea change.
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