Eastern Australia Trip. Day 9 : Brisbane

February 24, 2018

The first day in Brisbane was rather packed. In the morning, we spent the drizzling day on Mount Coot-tha, 10 km to the west of CBD. The mountain is part of the Taylor Mountain Range, west of Brisbane’s city center and is a listed Heritage Site. Coot-tha is also known as One Tree Hill and the lookout point was established as early as 1918.

Among the attractions we visited were the Botanic Gardens, Herbarium, Sir Thomas Planetarium, and the Cosmic Skydome. We took more than 2 hours to explore and walk through the bamboo grove and the ornamental pond and even has an outstanding Japanese garden.

I regret to say that even though I brought my camera everywhere, I didn't take as many pictures as I should have. I just relied on the pictures taken by my wife and my own mobile phones. (Mine is not as extravagant gadget that can took really high-pixel photo shoot...)

Glass dome garden housed the tropic plants

Varieties of ferns on display, including ferns that live on rocks, trees and in the water

Gaining knowledge on the tree ferns through read

The cactus garden was pretty huge

Best ni kalau bole buat meriam buluh...

We were into the Japanese Garden, you can expect a pond in there

Shot taken by Nu'man

First we thought it was just a replica...

The Cosmic Skydome located in the Planetarium

We drove back to the city center, as it was Saturday morning, the traffic was still bearable. We looked out for the nearest car park to the King George Square. Then, we walked to the ANZAC Square Memorial, opposite to the Central Station. Accessed to the Square through the Shrine of the Remembrance facade, and we saw statues and bronze plaque in memory of Australian and New Zealand Army Corps that fought in various wars.

Second Boer War Memorial Statue

Among those who killed during South African War

The 100++ years building is now the Grand Central Hotel

We walked around 500 meters towards the King George Square to visit the Museum of Brisbane. It was the same building as the City Hall, situated on level 3. We didn't reserve any tours conducted by the museum. We had to wait until noon for empty slots, so we decided to entourage by ourselves to the City Hall. However, the hand-operated lift for the Clock Tower still needs to be accompanied by the museum personnel.

Free admission, though you need to reserve for the tours.

Best place to get to know Brisbane now and then

Nice architecture at the Grand Foyer

Wide staircase at the basement level

The main auditorium is a large circular hall covered by a large copper dome

The City Hall resemble the Pantheon in Rome

That is the Clock Tower!

Before we heading back for lunch, we meandered around the high street, Queen Street Mall, and grabbed some souvenirs to bring back home.

A mix of local, national and international labels and flagship stores.

She registered for the ICCAE event tomorrow

Rain or shine, tetap nak mandi swimming pool

After rested, we headed to the South Brisbane area, in motion to take selfie of the iconic BRISBANE's sign located in South Bank Parklands along the the Brisbane river. It was Saturday nights so the parking space was quite limited. Once we were there, it was like everywhere you turned, you've bound to see something interesting in the huge park. The man-made beach was large, unfortunately we didn't brought our swim gear, so Nu'man was a little bit upset.