Bris-been There... Done That...

Brisbane Skyline over the Brisbane River.

So the next stop on my whirlwind tour of Australia's East Coast was the city of Brisbane. It is the capital city of Queensland and another metropolis which many Australians have told me to avoid, as there's nothin' goin' on there, mate. However, I am not in the business of avoiding the places, even if they are boring. After all, there are much more boring places in the world. (Ohio comes to mind.)

So I landed in Brisbane Airport and caught a train into the city. I checked into my hostel and went about my normal routine of getting myself situated in a new time and place. I bought my groceries for my stay, locked away my valuables, reorganized my backpack according to what clothes I would need as I was now back in the colder weather and went about getting familiar with the hostel and my surroundings. To that end I set off to wander the city of Brisbane following my normal patterns of: Making it up as I go along.

The city itself is quite beautiful. It has a large and scenic wharf area as well as an art district known as South Brisbane, where you can find art galleries, museums, and of course your usual array of coffee shops, parks, eateries, and even festivals. When I arrived a large festival celebrating the Torres Islanders had just begun. Best of all when I visited the Saturday Markets I was able to buy homemade fudge. (Fudge yeah!) Brisbane is the most populated city in Australia. It is named after the river it is situated on, which is in turn named after Sir Thomas Brisbane, who was the Governor of New South Wales. it was originally known as the penal colony of Red Cliff Point. Free settlers entered the area starting in 1837, and over the following five years work was begun on the first plan of Brisbane Town in anticipation of future development. By 1842, Brisbane had become a free settlement, and in 1859 Queensland was proclaimed a separate colony, with Brisbane chosen as its capital, although it was not incorporated as a city until 1902. During World War II, Brisbane became central to the Allied campaign when the AMP Building (now called MacArthur Central Building) was used as the South West Pacific headquarters for General Douglas MacArthur, until his headquarters were moved to Hollandia in August 1944. Approximately 1 million US troops passed through Australia during the war, as the primary coordination point for the South West Pacific Theater of Battle.


The Brisbane Story Bridge... Isn't it wonderful?

Most interestingly, in 1942 Brisbane was the site of a violent clash between visiting US military personnel and Australian servicemen and civilians which resulted in one death and several injuries. This incident became known colloquially as the Battle of Brisbane. The two day brawl between American and Australian servicemen took place on November 26 and 27th. It was the culimnation of tensions that had been rising for months. These tensions seemed to be over the fact that Americans received better rations, got preferential treatment in Australian shops, hotels, and restaurants and Australians didn't like how Americans were openly caressing their women in public. American pay was also considered higher and lack of amenities for the Australians in the city also played a part. The Americans had PXs offering merchandise, food, alcohol, cigarettes, hams, turkeys, ice-cream, chocolates and nylon stockings at low prices, all items that were either forbidden, heavily rationed, or highly priced to Australians. Australian servicemen were not allowed into these clubs while Australian canteens on the other hand provided meals, soft drinks, tea and sandwiches but not alcohol, cigarettes and other luxuries. Hotels were only allowed to serve alcohol twice a day for one hour at a time of their choosing leading to large numbers of Australian servicemen on the streets rushing from one hotel to the next and then drinking as quickly as possible before it closed. It was only a matter of time before the tensions and jealously erupted as they did. The fighting left many serviceman injured and on Australian serviceman dead. The news of the battle was suppressed in the news at the time as it though the Axis might use it as propaganda. However, I like to think American and Australian realtions have improved.



Brisbane is also home to an Australian friend of mine, Julie. I met up with her for some lunch and a tour of the city's Surrealist exhibit at the art gallery. The gallery was well situated and quite beautiful, though some of the surrealist showings were a little confusing. However, we delighted ourselves by guessing what the heck we were looking at and what it all meant. (I mean there are only so many ways you can interpret a painting of a half-bird/half-woman, who seems to be missing her face.) I was glad for this little excursion though as it just confirmed my impression of Brisbane as a city of art. It is not an artsy/performance city the way I consider Melbourne, where there are coffee shops and live music venues all over the place, but it is a city of art galleries. In Brisbane you are more likely to find a multitude of venues and exhibitions showing paintings and sculptures all year round.

In fact, in my time walking Brisbane, I continually received the impression that the city was very much like the Upper Westside of Manhattan, back home. It boasted parks, galleries, was well spaced, and had a lot of very rich looking buildings and apartments. Yet, I will admit its scenery did not leave a huge impression on me. Maybe it is my jaded traveller's eye or maybe it really wasn't all that and a bag of crisps. Either way, it was a large modern city, like so many other large modern cities I have seen over the past seven months. I am not saying it was entirely forgettable, as places like George Square, and St. Alexander Cathedral were certainly places I was glad I visited and stepped inside, but even the Story Bridge was just another bridge.


Brisbane City Hall

The Story Bridge, for those that do not know, if basically Brisbane's equivalent of Sydney's Harbour Bridge, except its less famous and basically just a large bridge (despite how they try to sell it.) I walked the bridge one day and as I looked down to the brown-blue Brisbane River I realized that I was walking over a bridge... that was it. It was a long bridge, and my feet were beginning to hurt, but there was no sense of wonder attached to the experience. If anything I was annoyed that I had to walk back over it to get back to my hostel. The bridge was actually constructed in 1932, before the Harbour Bridge, but that hasn't seemed to help it much. if anything its existence only serves to further fan the flames of the Queensland/New South Wales rivalry, which happens every year over a game called State of Origin.

Basically, it is the biggest Rugby series of the year, and the best I an equate it to is like the Superbowl, but only for parts of Australia, as Victoria is too preoccupied with Aussie Rules Footy to really care that much about Rugby. Still the game marks the beginning of rugby as a sport in Australia and is played over a many months of a consecutive game series. It pits the best players from each state against one another and Queensland has dominated the past 6 years. This year though, New South Wales had managed to tie the series and it was all going to come down to the last game which was to take place on the day I was scheduled to leave Brisbane (thankfully.) The city seemed ready to explode, as the game was being held right in the local stadium and Australians were flooding in from all over the country. You could not have found a room to save your life. In fact a few backpackers I met literally had to sleep on the street because of the influx of sports enthusiasts. It made me happy to leave.

Still, Brisbane is not a bad city, even if it is not entirely a memorable one. It is certainly cheaper than Melbourne or Brisbane, and some of the parks located around the city are well worth walking through. (They even have a Japanese garden where you can listen to a Japanese water drum.) Even if the city is not memorable, the time I had there was. Mostly because of the people I met, and the adventures I had there. However, my time in Brisbane was not entirely up, and there was still one place left for me to check out. it is a place that has been on my to-do list since the beginning, but that's another story.