A Brissie Walkabout

A lovely, sunny day in Brisbane to start my exploration. First up was the Old Windmill. It was originally built to grind mill for the prison population. Poor planning in its location, as in no wind, meant that the sails would rarely turn. Ah, but there was a fix for that,  just make the prisoners turn the sails on a treadmill! It was later used for observation, but really it was never of much use. Tim says it's ugly, I think it's odd looking.

Next up was the Unity Church, I really liked it, inside and out. It's not fancy, but has an easy beauty about it. When you look down from above, it sits on a little island of green in the midst of the concrete jungle. Next door is the City Hall building, a grand and imposing presence in the central square. I wandered inside and discovered that I could take a free tour to the top of the clock tower. And no climbing stairs, there's an elevator!  Heading to the top of the tower, I was super impressed with the elevator, in service since 1930 and "mostly" all original. The views were good and as

The Old Windmill

Unity Church

City Hall

Unity Church from the clock tower

The elevator

Clock from inside

City Hall auditorium

Me!

War memorials

Love these trees!

Old Post Office

St. Stephens

Botanical Gardens

The "dead" bird

Queensland Parliament House

More Botanical gardens

On the Cityhopper

Story Bridge

City from the bridge

mentioned, I especially liked the different perspective of Unity Church from above. We stopped at the clocks on the way down, most interesting was that all the clocks are controlled hy an ancient grandfather clock, not anything high tech.

Next up, and you can see the pics, were the ANZAC war memorials, the Old Post Office, St. Stephen's Cathedral, and then on to the Botanical Gardens. The Brisbane botanical gardens were well-tended, and very pretty, even though they don't match the size and scope of their counterparts in Sydney and Melbourne. As I walked along a path in the gardens  I came across a large dead bird. I stopped to take a look...he was lying on his side, one wing bent up and broken looking, his head twisted a bit. I said "ah, too bad guy,  wonder what happened to you." And then one eye popped open and he jumped up and squawked at me!

I finished my walk through the gardens, headed out onto the adjacent wharf promenade. I headed for the closest pier where the CityHopper docks. The CityHopper is a FREE ferry,  so I took the ride for a while to see the city. Scored a nice seat on the top.  I didn't realize that there are high cliffs along a lot of the river channel. After we passed the main bridge, Story Bridge, I got off and walked back over the river on foot.  Took some pics of the cityscape and headed home...a good day of sightseeing.