I grew up in Brisbane, spending the first 20 years of my life hanging out in Queen Street Mall and catching the yellow buses around town. I moved away to regional Queensland about a year ago for work and travel back to the city to see family and friends regularly. I returned home recently for the Christmas break and decided to spend a day doing a number of tourist-y things throughout the city. Let me tell you, whoever said Brisbane was boring and there wasn’t anything to do were just plain wrong!
We started the day at the Gallery of Modern Art, checking out the gallery’s 10th anniversary exhibit. Several highlights from the previous decade had returned, including the massive slide in the main foyer as well as the bird room full of Australian finches.
It was a great exhibition and one that everyone should check out before it closes.
Following our stop at GOMA we headed across to City Hall where we picked up tickets for the clock tower tour. I had been up the clock tower a couple of years ago, but Laura hadn’t. It’s an entirely free tour, but make sure you get in early as tickets go very quickly. We saw some disappointed people in groups of 3-4 people who missed out on tickets because they weren’t early enough. With a forty five minute wait betweeen getting the tickets and the start of the tour we headed down a couple of levels to one of the oldest Shingle Inns in Queensland. While not the original Shingle Inn, the City Hall cafe utilities a number of furniture pieces from the original store. It was a nice touch and felt like a medieval British pub.
Brisbane City Hall houses one of the oldest clocks in Australia and the elevator that takes you up to see it is still the original, despite several wires being replaced. The tour lasted about 15 minutes, with about five minutes being allocated to walking around the top viewing area, just underneath the bells. The reason we couldn’t spend longer looking at the fantastic views was because we’d go deaf if we were standing there when the bells rang. Our tour guide was very informative and explained how the bells worked and their history well. I couldn’t believe the clock had been looked after by just one man for several decades.
After a bit of Christmas shopping and a stop off at a sushi train for dinner, it was time to check out the first night of the David Jones Christmas Parade. The floats were very Christmas themed, with some showing off the nativity and of course a Santa sleigh. Though I still have no idea how a group of dancing astronauts or giant robots have anything to do with Christmas? The 10,000-plus large crowd then walked across the road to city hall (hello again old friend) for the lights experience. The hall lit up and told the story of a couple of animals that stole some tinsel off a Christmas tree. To see the animation and a story being told in such a way was incredibly interesting. The story itself, well… let’s just say all the kids that were there seemed to love it.
It was now time for the event we had been waiting for all day, a ghost tour of the old Boggo Road jail.Boggo Road was the main prison for Brisbane from the 1920s through to the 1990s. There were several high profile people kept there including the Whiskey A Go Go arsonists. While there were several wings to the prison, only B Wing (which was originally a woman’s wing, but was turned into a male wing when it wasn’t holding enough females) survives. A Wing where the gallows used to be has been completely destroyed and is now a big shiny CSRIO research building. The tour guide took us around to several of the iconic locations within the jail, including a number of the cells which had the original graffiti still in tact. Apparently the prison is still in the same state it was in when it shut its doors in the ’90s. It was a great tour which showcased much of Brisbane’s dark and gruesome history. I would recommend anyone interested to do the tour as soon as possible as the prison won’t be in its original untouched condition for much longer. The complex will soon be upgraded and several of the prison buildings turned into bars and restaurants. It’s a shame as it is such a great tourist attraction and great part of Brisbane’s history.
Whoever said there was nothing to do in Brisbane was just wrong. From GOMA, to city hall, Boggo Road and much, much more, there is plenty to do in Brisbane every single day. Brisbane truly is a remarkable city and I am proud to call it my home town.
Nice work Tobi. A tour of the South Brisbane and Toowong cemeteries would also be good…..they probably do ghost tours too!