Bris-Vegas - some sights

Saturday 24th June 2006

So here we are - Bris-Vegas! The weather was a scorcher and this is the view from one of the main bridges over the Brissy river. Have to say that Brissy looks great when you drive in - obviously much smaller than Sydney but still a sizable lump on the horizon what with the CBD buildings and what not!

I was meeting Rebecca for the night - she'd kindly offered to take me out and about so after ditching the van we met up at the Queens Street Mall and headed over the river to South Bank for a mooch through the old Expo site.

CBD from South Bank.

Knowing nothing about the history of it I thought it was pretty beautiful - well set up and looked after but apparently before the Expo in '98 it was a shithole (cue joke!). I could see it used to be an industrial area what with the docks and what not but obviously that's all gone now.


Loved the boat here - it does cruises up and down the river in old colonial style - but thought it looked lovely chugging up the river in the olde worlde fashion!



There's also a cheeky little maritime museum which, Baron you'll be pleased to note, I managed to get around in time! OK, so I had to wait until Brissy but hey - all's well that ends well!! Anyway, the 'thingummyjig' that I'm pointing at is in fact, the worlds smallest boat. Some Canadian guy designed and built it and sailed it to Oz! Great way to get a skilled migrant visa - win a Guinness World Record!!


One of the other things I love about Oz is the apparent understatement in life here....

'Can a bluebottle kill you?'...'Nah, but it hurts a bit...'

'Isn't it dangerous to swim here because of croc attacks?'... 'Nah, not really - the biggest risk tends to be if you're near the waters edge, but anyway, the last attack was three years ago so you're pretty safe...'

I suppose that with that in mind, it's not surprising to see the same penchant for understatement extend to warning signs.... This little beaut was one I spotted whilst out jogging:

Flood risk....4m? No shit - that's like an inland sea! Whoever said that Oz is experiencing a drought is lying - unless of course, it's that old Govmint favourite...'Wrong type of rain....'!!