Rounding the Point

Approaching Storey Bridge,
originally uploaded by BrisbaneBryce.

And not just metaphorically. This photo was taken on the City Ferry. We were traveling from Dockside on Kangaroo Point toward Eagle Street, which is the first stop in the CBD. It had just started raining when I took this photo, and when we had just passed the CBD, I saw lightning strike one of the high rises. A dramatic entry to the downtown, eh?

Although Eagle Street is maybe a kilometer from Dockside as the crow flies, it's at least twice that by ferry. That's because Kangaroo Point is the southern bank of a sharp meander in the Brisbane River. It's almost the tip of an inverted "U" that the bridge crosses over.

The bridge is all steel construction, and looks as if it were built in the early 20th century. I've heard stories about how a bomb shelter was built under the southern buttress of the bridge for World War II, so I suspect it was built between WWI and WWII. It's a beautiful bridge. I walked from the point to the the other side, a neighborhood called Fortitude Valley, and it only took me about 15 minutes. That's pretty easy, and perfectly reasonable when going to that area. Fortitude Valley, or "the Valley", seems to be the nightclub and entertainment center for the city, the alterna-scene to the bright lights and tall buildings of the CBD. It's about another 10 minutes to Eagle Street from there.

There's a group that hosts daily walking tours of the bridge, which I think is really cool. I definitely want to do that some day. They rig everyone for climbing and take the group through the upper reaches of the bridge. Walking across the bridge is really fun. It's very tall, which means at some points, you're even and not very far from the middle floors of some of the downtown high rises. While used mostly for cars to get from the CBD to the southern suburbs and from the northern suburbs to the Gold Coast, there is a very lively walking and biking community that uses the bridge. Even late at night, I encountered foot and bike traffic.

The ferries are awesome and I look forward to commuting on them, at least for a little while. They're clean, on time, and the pilots are friendly. Off-peak hours, the round trip fare from Dockside to North Quay was only AU$3.90. North Quay is the end of the line and farthest downstream this particular route took, also the closest to Queen Street, a big shopping mall. When I arrive in Brisbane, I'll be taking the City Ferry and City Cat. I'll take some photos when I get there, because the boats are really fun. The City Ferries are kind of roly-poly smallish boats that travel between just upstream of Dockside and North Quay.

The City Cats are catamarans that have routes that range much farther up and down stream than the City Ferries. They seem a bit racier and more modern. I haven't been on them, but my workplace is off a City Cat stop farther downstream from North Quay. The Cats don't stop at Kangaroo Point, so I'll have to take a Ferry to the CBD, then catch a Cat to my stop, which is named Regatta. I'm also looking forward to see if there are any bike users on the ferries. I hope so, because it would be fun to ferry around the point then bike from the CBD to work. It would be a good workout.

I'm also rounding the point in getting settled with moving out of the house. I'm down to the final sort, followed by the packing run. I joined the Qantas Club so I could use their lounges, use a shorter line in the terminal when I need to get reticketed, and also because I can bring a third 32kilo bag. That last gives me some additional flexibility in what I can bring with me to Brisbane. I would like to bring some records, CDs and books with me. I also need to bring a lot of papers with me. The shorter line for reticketing is worth the price of admission because the last time through, it took me almost three hours to negotiate the ticketing, luggage security and personal security lines. And, the lounge is awesome because I can rest my dogs, read, and have a bite to eat during my stopover in LAX. I surely wish I'd known about that the last time. I know better now, and I look forward to relaxing more on this trip.