Brisbane and the Sunshine Coast

We are in agreement that, of the five cities we visited in Australia, Brisbane would be our first choice of a place to live. It's a modern, rapidly-growing city that benefits mightily from the Brisbane River running through it. The city operates a fleet of fast catamaran ferries on the river that are very cheap and run often -- so that it's entirely possible to commute by ferry (if one lives anywhere near the river and works downtown) and to use the ferries to go to a favorite restaurant or to a theater. What a nice feature for a city.

As we've done in many other cities, we took a city sightseeing bus as a way to get the "lay of the land" -- to understand where prime attractions or major parts of the city are located and how things are related. We also walked a good bit of the downtown area (some of it with the DeCorpos), including the Queen Street Mall, a multi-block, all-pedestrian shopping area on Queen Street. We found ourselves returning repeatedly to the riverfront, with its beautiful walks and fantastic restaurants by the dozens as well as vibrant night life.

Brisbane is in the state of Queensland and is the home of the Queensland Art Gallery, also one of our stops. While the gallery's collection is not as large as many we've seen, the art is interesting and the building beautiful.

Overall, there were some elements that reminded us of Monterey -- while Brisbane is larger, it still has a small city feel similar to Monterey's and yet possesses an elegant sophistication; and, like Monterey, has an incredible number of great restaurants for its size -- and, of course, a beautiful waterfront.

The coastal area just north of Brisbane is called the Sunshine Coast and we took a bit of a drive along this stretch -- going as far north as the very popular resort town of Noosa Heads (named for the two headlands that bound the beautiful beach). We stopped on the way for a visit to Underwater World, a surprisingly good aquarium, with a seal/sea lion show and a glass tunnel through the large tanks, where the fish swim all around the visitors.

See some of Brisbane and the Sunshine Coast at:
http://chuck.smugmug.com/gallery/1228523/1/57546395