Christmas in the Big Smoke

After what has been a pretty tumultuous year, Pete and I decided Christmas would be a different sort of break – a few days in a hotel in Queensland’s capital city, Brisbane. With a population of just over 2.5 million, it is the third most populous city in Australia (after Sydney and Melbourne). It is also the largest of Australia’s six capital cities by geographic area and the third largest in the world, occupying some 1,140 km². How about that?

Anyway, we stayed in a hotel within walking distance of the CBD just across the river, and right next to Southbank, a great recreational area on the (er) southern bank of the Brisbane River. The idea was to mooch around, and have somebody else do the cooking and cleaning over Christmas. However, Christmas Day in Australia can be problematic. Just about everything is closed and there are a few other quirks – as we discovered. We arrived on the 24th and joined hundreds of other people enjoying the sub-tropical night on the banks of the river. The cafes and eateries were packed. And it seems that although Christmas Eve is not a public holiday – it is after 6pm, when food and drink outlets can charge the 15% public holiday surcharge.

Christmas Day was very different. The hotel still served breakfast of course but just about every other business was closed. We figured the gardens would be open, though, so we proposed to go to the Roma Street Parklands. That involved crossing the river, which can be done via several bridges or by the busy little water ferries, some of which offer free trips to a variety of riverside destinations. We discovered we could stay on the ferry while it did its two-hour trip down to Sydney Street and back, giving us a great, pain-free way of seeing the city – at the rock-bottom cost of FREE. For most of the trip Pete and I and a couple of Americans had the boat to ourselves. Being Christmas Day, the usually busy ferry stops were mainly deserted and the four of us just enjoyed the ambience and took lots of pictures.

But as time passed, a few other people joined us here and there. A group of young women dressed in red bikinis and wearing Santa hats came on board to go to the beach at Southbank. They joined us at the back of the ferry and sang Christmas songs until they arrived at their stop. They were great fun, very entertaining.

Our new American friends wanted to look at gardens, too, so I asked my phone for directions and we set off to the Roma Street Parklands. Sometimes Google maps selects obscure routes. It took us on the bike way underneath the motorway that runs along the river’s edge. At least it was shady. By now Cathy was gasping for some water as we walked through a virtually deserted city. Fortunately, we found a 711 that was open, run by Muslims.

Roma Street Parklands is lovely. Apart from the plantings, it’s also home to many water dragons. They’re very used to people and are not afraid of cameras. We all have a pile of photos of little dragons. Here’s just one.

By now all of us were feeling a bit foot-sore. We made our way back to the hotel, stopping for a coffee at one of the few cafes that was open. After a half hour break, we drove up to Mt Coot-tha which offers great view of the city, as well as extensive gardens. But we were all a bit too foot-sore to do the gardens justice. (Not as young as we used to be)

By the time we got back to the hotel we all felt in need of a drink. But it seems that on Christmas Day in Brisbane one is not allowed to have an alcoholic beverage unless it accompanies a ‘proper’ meal. That restriction applied everywhere. Presumably that was one of the reasons so few places were open. I mean – how bloody silly is that? It was too early to eat. So we pooled the contents of the minibars in our respective hotel rooms and drank and chatted in our room. We pitched in a bag of mixed nuts we’d brought with us.

Then we went out to find somewhere to eat that wasn’t in the hotel. Restaurants were either closed or packed but we found a Japanese place operating on a restricted menu. The food was lovely and when we returned to our room, I for one slept like a log.