The only reason I ever discovered Brisbane is because a friend of mine moved there. After a stint in Perth and innumerable visits to both Sydney and Melbourne, he claimed to have found Ozzie nirvana in Brisbane, Queensland, on the East Coast. “I’m never moving again,” he gushed over the phone. I always thought of Brisbane as Durban with a twang and weaker beer. Mind you, it boasts a few cute rugby players, I rationalised, as too much of me tried to squeeze into too little of Singapore Airlines.
The heart of Brisbane is the Queen Street Mall, a pedestrian thoroughfare of shops, movie houses, impressive heritage buildings, pubs and bookstalls. Park the car once, grab your greenbacks and away you go — set for a day’s discovery and entertainment.
First you notice the “uniform” favoured by almost all Brisbane beauties: a seriously short skirt matched with an itsy-bitsy spaghetti-strap crop top, accessorised with fashion flip-flops and, maybe, a pair of sunglasses. If they wore less, they’d be cited for public indecency. The guys strut around in three-quarter baggy pants, sleeveless T-shirts, flops and a baseball cap — backwards of course. Everybody’s tanned and smiling. It’s amazing what coastal living and more than 300 days of sunshine a year can do for the human spirit.
Yes, the shopping is great, but what caught my eye were the idiosyncrasies. Aboriginals blowing their didgeridoos in the middle of the square while grandma in white shoes and pearls over there is trying to balance some blush ginger on her sushi. The youngsters are digging into Italian berry ice-creams while the Oriental clientele give the local staple of fish and chips the benefit of the doubt. Over at the pub the pie and beer brigade is just getting comfortable over a quick lunch, while the smiling cops on their bikes look like something out of a Colgate ad. Somehow it all fits together. If the Aussies have got one thing right, then it has to be their laid-back enjoyment of the good life.
Yet this town has a soul, too. One night, on the way to movies, a bit of a bedraggled-looking bunch crowded around an old caravan. Turns out local charities were providing a hot meal for the city’s down-and-out — a nightly ritual. What struck me, though, were the numbers. There couldn’t have been more than about 30 takers.
Yet, for all their hedonism, Ozzie drivers are a responsible bunch. The normal mode of transport for a night out on the town is a taxi. That way your enjoyment is guilt-free and you get to keep your licence. In a two-block area just down from Chinatown both gay and straight clubs cluster together, with the Wickham hotel’s turn-of-the-century architecture as the focal point. There is not an ounce of aggression in the air and the obligatory bouncers end up collecting bottles and glasses to keep themselves busy — and stay awake.
But what makes Brisbane a city worth a detour? I had the privilege of seeing it through the eyes of a visiting architect from Auckland (New Zealand) who is mad for those typical Queenslander bungalows. They’re built on stilts (to escape termites), feature lattice-work out front and generally look like a smaller version of a sugar-cane plantation mansion. Many a day we would jet around on the Citycat — a river ride on a big, fast number — just to enjoy the view of the city’s elegant homes and downtown’s heritage buildings. Sensually following the curves of the Brisbane river, the city is home to 1,5-million people, but they’re spread out so equally you’d never know it.
Just across the river from the Queen’s Street Mall is South Bank, where the cool crowd hangs. Built initially to accommodate a world fair, the remaining buildings now serve as an art and entertainment complex, complemented by a small beach, a number of tented restaurants and a buzzy street market. We went to see the show Mama Mia! in what is arguably one of the best theatre houses around. The art museum houses a must-see collection of Aboriginal works with their trademark patterns and, to my delight, a female director’s take on Ozzie surfers was showing in the auditorium. I enjoyed the city’s museum for its exhibitions on Pacific Island life and history places like the Torrest Straits, for example.
Driving around you inevitably pass by the pagodas and lanterns of Fortitude Valley’s Chinatown. It only occupies about two blocks, but has everything, including speciality greengrocers for fresh galangal, lime leaves and coriander. The supermarkets are stocked to the hilt with rice vinegar, soy, hoisin and teriyaki sauces and the restaurants run from Korean to Vietnamese to Japanese — and every variation of Chinese, of course. Prices are unbelievably moderate.
As a foodie person I was licking my chops at the prospect of finally discovering Oz cuisine and sampling some of the wares splashed across the pages of Vogue Entertaining. If you make it to Brisbane for a visit, head straight for a place called Spoon in James Street. It’s a deli-cum-restaurant that serves food you’d fight your mother for. Plum-grilled pork belly, coconut prawns, lemon-grass scallops — they have it all. And just across from the deli is the Australian version of a produce market. Fresh crab, prawns, salmon, calamari and mussels are displayed with military precision. Mangoes and melons the size of soccer balls compete with uber-sized strawberries for your dollars and, all the while, the aroma of sugar, cinnamon and yeast from the baked-goods counter hangs in the air. They sure live well in Ozzie-land.
Brisbane has basically everything you could ask of a city, without the crushing numbers. The river setting is gorgeous, the vegetation, all palms and frangipani. The art galleries and interior design shops are funky and European movies and delis, along with alfresco coffee hangouts, abound. The food’s great, the people friendly and real estate prices are the best in a country where most properties are beyond the scope of the rand. Like my friend said, now that he has a job there, he’s not going anywhere.
The lowdown
The city was named after a former governor of New South Wales, Sir Thomas Brisbane, and started its life as a penal colony. Brisbane ranks third in size after Sydney and Melbourne.
It’s dead easy to get to. From South Africa you can travel via Singapore or Sydney on either Singapore Airlines or Quantas. Keep your eyes on those posters outside Flight Centre — I once spotted a ticket to Sydney for about R6 000. It’s a Jo’burg to Durban hop from Sydney to Brisbane.
Yes, you do need a visa and it’s quite the one to get, too — bank statements, letters of invitation, proof of employment and travel documents all have to be assembled. And then you still pay about R350 for the visa itself. Don’t even think of applying less than a month prior to departure.
From Brisbane you can travel up the coast to the Australia Zoo of Steve Erwin fame and visit Noosa — Oz’s answer to Plett, if not even more upmarket. The restaurants and boutiques are divine.
The whole Barrier Reef is on your doorstep. I stayed a month and by the time I left there was still a list a mile long of stuff I wanted to do.