Brisbane

We arrived in Brisbane on Tuesday afternoon.

Our accommodation here is another old Queenslander, which is awesome. I love these houses. We are renting a room in the house and sharing with 3 other people. In this house we are sharing with Aussie businessmen, rather than travellers. Which is cool, they are very nice but I find it a bit bizarre that they would stay in shared accommodation. Some of them live far away from the city and only stay for the week and go home at the weekend, but it still puzzles me, why not stay at a travel lodge or motel?Anyway we also have a pool... but its only about 22-23 degrees outside, so too cold for a swim.

We were so happy to see a city!
Its been really interesting to explore some of the towns in the North, but we really enjoy city life and shops that are open later than 5pm!
So we celebrated our city freedom by going to the cinema at 10pm.It was nice to leave the cinema past midnight and still see bars and restaurants open.

We are staying in the Highgate Hill area, which is a 10 minute walk to the Southbank and Westend suburbs of Brisbane. Southbank is home to the Cultural centre. Queensland Art Gallery, Gallery of Modern Art and Museum of Queensland can all be found in the cultural centre. There are many nice restaurants along the Southbank area and it also home of the Southbank campus of Griffith University.  Southbank is also home to Streets Beach. A beachside setting, with sand and a swimming lagoon which look over the Brisbane river and towards the city. So you can go for a swim, then sunbathe on the beach and look out at the city skyline. It really is awesome.

The Brisbane Big Wheel is also on the Southbank. A big wheel like the London eye, I imagine must give an amazing view of the city from the top. 

West End is home to lots of vintage clothes shops, book shops, cafes, restaurants, bars and clubs. A really nice area that we are looking forward to exploring!

The CBD sits on the banks of the Brisbane river. As we are living on the opposite side of the river we cross the bridge to get to the centre. There are also 'City Cats', which are catamarans that are like river buses. You can catch them to go from one side to other or to go further along the coast. We have seen some commuters getting on and off the city cat in rush hour... we think that this is one of the best commutes to work in the world.

 Like most cities there is plenty to do and plenty of things going on and Brisbane is no different.  We cannot wait to do some exploring!

All rights reserved Copyright © Laura Powell

So this is home for the first part of the journey....

  So this is the house that we are sharing for our first month in Australia, in Cairns, Northern Queensland.

We have a room on the first floor and are sharing with a guy from Switzerland, a couple from Columbia, a guy from France, 2 German girls and I'm unsure about the other 2 girls sharing with us. 

          

                    The view from our window, all the windows have shutters annoyingly!

           

         

         

          The back porch and garden area.

        

The Queenslander houses are fascinating architecturally. I have learned that they are built with consideration to the tropical climate of Queensland, the hot weather and heavy rainfall during the wet season. The houses are generally raised off the floor, with some sort of underhouse storage area and a veranda. 

So these are a few of our neighboring houses....

                                             Next doors curious black cat

this window is directly opposite our bedroom window, with its delightfully 1970's curtains always drawn its very intriguing. Whoever is hiding behind these curtains plays the same little tune on the piano each afternoon. 

                           The mountains in the distance at either end of the street

 Dont lean on the banister as you climb the stairs to the apartment as there are huge green ants that march relentlessly, rain or shine (although in the rain they do more huddling in mass groups in a shelter than marching) up and down the wooden banister on the stairs leading up to our apartment. 

so its bye from us for now, laters x 

All rights reserved Copyright © Laura Powell