Day 15 – The Top of Brisbane
The one thing I haven’t really done yet on my trip yet is a
real hike. Granted, for me a hike isn’t really a hike – it is more of a trek
with some uphill and maybe a few rocks. I tell people I like to go hiking, but
I gather the more official term to use is “trailing” or some such. No ropes, no
added gear, no risks in that sense. But anyway, I probably do more than most,
but so far I had not lived up to that on this trip, and my body was feeling a
bit bloated for it. So this morning, I changed all that, going over to Mount
Coot-Tha, the tall hill (truthfully, calling it a mountain is a stretch) to the
West of the city. The grounds also hold the Botanical Gardens of Brisbane at
its base. In something of a Cape Town-like set-up, there is a back entrance to
the Botanical Gardens accessible by trial where you can basically through that
enter for free.
The hike to the top of Mount Coot-Tha wasn’t all that
difficult, going up about 500 feet in elevation over 1.3 miles. Not close to
the most strenuous, but also not the lightest either. What was nice is that it
was shade covered for most of it, which was helpful given the beautiful
sun-soaked sky. As we were in winter, there was not much vegetation or flowers to
be found, but it was still quite a pretty hike. The real treat though is at the
top, with a birds eye view of blissful Brisbane. What was weird is from this
particular angle, you can’t really make out the curvature of Brisbane around its
river. In fact, it is hard to make out there is a river at all – just an agglomeration
of buildings cropping up from the greenery.
The hike down was slightly different (as it needed to lead
to the back entrance of the gardens), and I will say I did get slightly lost.
All thanks to AllTrails app though for having for more clear guidance in their
app map than the signs in the area. The hike down was a bit more barren and
honestly quite steep (downwards) at times, but in the end I did reach the
botanical gardens. It is almost comical how similar this is to the Contour Path
ending in Kirstenbosch, as similarly you find yourself at the very extreme end
of the gardens. Now, nicely for me, unlike Kirstenbosch, the Brisbane Botanical
Gardens are not set-up in a giant oval, but rather a lot more rectangular,
making it easier to not really miss anything despite entering at the back end.
The Gardens were quite full given it was a weekday and in
their winter, but, as I’m learning, winter is not really a thing in Brisbane.
The weather was perfect, the gardens were super well manicured. Yes, there
weren’t a lot of flowers, but the trees were great, there were birds aplenty,
and a lot of beautiful trees. Combined with the peak of Mount Coot-Tha
(reachable by car as well), this is a good way to spend a few hours in Brisbane.
Anotehr great way to spend a few hours is what I did after
lunch at Yoko. Lunch was notable in a way as it got me to see the under the
bridge area of New Farm. The bridge in question is the Story Bridge, one of the
more traditional (read: uglier) bridges crossing the Brisbane River, but
underneath it on the north end of the river is a beautiful area of restaurants,
breweries and life. Yoko was one of these – a Japanese place that had a nice
lunch sashimi set menu that I took in, the food being about as good as the
glorious view of Brisbane, even if a non-traditional view given how far upstream
we were in a sense (or downstream – no idea which direction the river runs). After
lunch I walked further north to a really nice small art gallery / handicraft
store, at the moment featuring a set of homeware sculptures from 12 different Queensland
sculpturs. After quite a bit of perusing, I picked one piece to take home. My
only real sad point is none of them felt uniquely Australian in their look (to
me, at least), but all were quite beautiful – including many beautiful at price
ranges I was unwilling to meet.
From there, I took an uber to basically near the Art
Museums, to start a long walk the reverse direction on the South Bank – passing
all the stuff from yesterday, but then taking the curve towards the other side
of downtown – the cliffs on the south side there being known as the Kangaroo
Cliffs (sadly, not because there are any of the eponymous animal). You can
either walk the cliffs at the bottom banks, where there are some running
tracks, sculptures, etc., or at the top level, which gives a better view of
Brisbane proper. Both are great, though on the whole the Kangaroo Cliffs side
of the river is less built up than the Southbank side.
That said, at the end of the road (plus about 10 more
minutes walk inland) was SeaLegs Brewing, which is probably the best craft
brewery I’ve been to in my time in Australia. Large open warehouse, tons of
different beer options on tap, even quite an extensive food menu, though I didn’t
have any food. It was about half full when I got there at 5, and pretty much
80% full when I left around 6:15pm. Tried half pours of three beers, including
a truly fantastic stout. All in all, a great spot – and just a few minutes from
a world class view.
My dinner tonight was the only proper tasting menu (i.e. not
a “banquet menu”) in my time in Brisbane, at their most reputed restaurant
Exhibition. The place seems at first like a speakeasy type entrance, but soon
enough you are sat in a small room that seats about 25, all decked out in black
and spotlights, and you watch a team of talented chefs just go to town. I’ll
cover all the courses in my normal end of trip write-up of the tasting menus
(this being the second one, after Tresind to start the trip what feels like
four weeks ago), but suffice to say, it was incredibly inventive, sharp and
pointed. Great stuff, including one of the most talkative, yet down-to-earth
somelliers I’ve met, who suggested sakes to me like a master despite me not
going for any pairing.
Afterwards, with the night still young (as finally I had a
dinner at a normal, from Brisbane, time of 7pm), I first went to Dr. Gimlette,
another very nice cocktail bar that happened to be the ground floor above
Exhibition. This one is also owned by the same group as Antico and Death &
Taxes. I will say, other than them all sharing a nice menu style of having a
sketch of how the drink will look, there’s nothing all too similar about these
places, nor gimmicky (i.e. there isn’t one tequila focused one vs. whiskey
focused). They’re all seemingly just really good.
From there, I went back to Death & Taxes, which was
packed and I snagged the last bar seat. I tried a couple new cocktails but
ended wuth the same one I ended yesterday with, called The Green Man, which is
a lovely absinthe and whiskey cocktail that is just lovely and velvety and
minty and I already want to go back and have another. From there, I walked a
few blocks down to Turquise Kebab, had another lovely kebab to end the night –
as I like to do in any city.
That basically ended my time in Brisbane, as I will be
heading to Gold Coast tomorrow during the day and then Sydney in the evening
for the last leg of the trip (not including I guess 18 hours in Auckland). On
the whole, I don’t think I spent too little time in Brisbane, but I do wish
maybe I came here for a weekend. You really get the best sense of a city on a
weekend – already I’ve seen it be more full on Wednesday than ti was Tuesday
than it was Monday (the exception being Mexico Mondays at the Brooklyn
Standard). There are a couple nice sounding EDM clubs and the like – but obviously
those are open Thu/Fri/Sat. Granted, that’s also true of the places in Sydney.
In the end, I don’t regret the decision of saving Sydney for the weekend, but I
do think Brisbane deserves it’s due.
I can see why this city earned itself an Olympics (granted,
like any host they had to pay up…). It is a world class city. From my travelling
around, I saw no real mediocre area, let alone bad areas. Just I guess some
slightly empty ones. It has one of the best riverfronts of any city I’ve been
to. It has a glistening, shiny quality that I wasn’t expecting. There is a
niceness, a pleasantness, a calmness to the people. From what I understand,
mining is basically making the money here, but enjoying amazing weather seems
to be doing a lot of the work as well. Brisbane is easily worth visiting or
adding to an Australia itinerary – I would say more so than Melbourne purely as
a place to spend a few days.
