April 2006
too late
We arrived in Brisbane, rented a car, and headed south immediately. Our goal was Byron Bay [see: Byron Bay] via a few national parks along the way. The itinerary then took us north to the famous coastal developments of Surfer's Paradise and the Gold Coast bypassing Brisbane once again to hit the Sunshine Coast (where we discovered Noosa - a place we loved). In short, very little time was budgeted for Brisbane, in fact, none at all.
That trip to Australia overall was a bust - there were highlights, especially in some of the national parks, but those incredible beach destinations we had heard about for years were just a bunch of condos along the sea. Australia has beautiful beaches, but then again, so does Florida. We were expecting something more. Byron Bay was nothing what we thought it would be, either. We even considered droving out to Toowoomba (for the name alone) on the OTHER side of Brisbane in search of something we were going feel "wow" about. We decided against it because we were already sick of driving - Australia, like America, is HUGE. Clearly, Queensland in and around Brisbane was just not the place for us. Except....
How ironic to arrive for our last night of the holiday, in Brisbane, to find that it was a beautiful city with a lovely waterfront. Brisbane's South Bank was what we had been looking for the entire visit and never managed to find. The twisting and turning Brisbane river and the hills surrounding made for a pleasant urban location. The riverfront was well-developed with a lot of parks and restaurants. Brisbane had a good museum, too. On that trip to Australia, we visited several places "on the bucket list" and after each one looked at each other and say "meh" - only to end up in a good place with no time to enjoy it. We both thought, "too bad we never knew anyone from Brisbane".
Little Perth was lovely and isolated, Adelaide empty and dusty, Cairns hot and steamy, and Darwin a little bit of tropical nothing. We assumed Brisbane was just going to be another ho-hum, medium-sized city in Australia - a country where the mega cities of Melbourne and Sydney dominated everything. We could not have been more wrong. If I were to redo the trip, we would have stayed the whole time in Brisbane and done a few day-trips to the national parks south of the city (they were lovely) and a drive out to Noosa (which had the nicest beach). Staying in "beautiful but not too overwhelming" Brisbane for a few days would have probably been a more satisfying holiday and more of what we needed.
We found one of our favorite cities in Australia on the last day of an unremarkable (and expensive holiday). As Cher said, "If I could turn back tai-yum...".