City in the loop

From Gympie we set off to see the city of Brisbane and the end of our visit to Australia.
We started from the train stationright downtown and walked across a bridge to the South Bank where all the museums and art galleries and concert halls are situated along with the riverside cafes and archways of flowering bougainvillea and swimming pools with beache!. Delightful morning spent walking and enjoying coffee in this picturesque city which has developed in the loop of the River Brisbane.
Found ourselves crossing another bridge with a glass half roof for protection of cyclists and pedestrians, as we wandered into the Queensland University of Technology with its marriage of old and young architecture leading into a wonderful botanical garden with monstrous banyan fig trees. What strange trees they are sending down aerial roots from their branches and fixing themselves into the earth below. You could get lost in the tangle of these hanging roots. We walked lots more and were delighted to find that brisbane is a city built on slopes and there are walkways and stairs to other levels. We took in churches and clock towers and rode the free city bus which makes a loop through the city, not for tourists but for the downtown workers and university students and shoppers. You can hop on and off as you please and get from one part of the city to another, from downtown to the university or up and down the many hills, with ease. ii is a city initiative to provide accessibility for Brisbaners. Great idea!
Something very interesting about a city built on hills as you keep reaching different levels and seeing new vistas around every corner. We ended our day on another wonderful form of transport in Brisbane - the City Cat. This fleet of catamarans is part of the accessibility initiative started about 6 years ago although for this you have to pay a minimal charge. The Cats literally zig zag up and down the river all day long. You can get on and off at any point and because the whole trip takes about 2 hours you can see it travels far and we saw lots of suburbs with housing for all walks of life. A couple of the stops are near the university, others downtown and then of course those further afield getting the workers on bicycles or pedestrian traffic to their nearest point of disembarcation. They travel fast and efficiently with quick on and off systems so it provides a viable service for people living out of town or on the opposite bank from where they need to work or visit.
As it was the end of a gorgeous sunny day we had a wonderful evening trip as the sun went down and generally felt Brisbane an interesting place to live and visit .........and such a good transportation system too.

A great end to our first visit to Australia.