Day 236 - Monday 21 August - Last capital city..Brisbane

Day 236

Monday

21 August 2017

Bonogin – Robina – Brisbane

We were awake after 7 this morning and feeling a little lazy.  We read for an hour before getting up. We heard Kirsty head off to work as we sat eating breakfast and sorting out our day. We banged on Scott’s door at 9am and chatted for a short while, before we made the move.

We drove our car to Robina train station, parked and proceeded to find out about tickets. We bought a train card for $30 that was preloaded with fares and jumped on the train to Brisbane.

The journey took about an hour, traveling through the suburbs and nondescript areas of the city. When the South Bank station was announced, we alighted the train and made our way to the river. We walked past a sign for the blind, that gave us a chuckle for if the were blind they wouldn’t be able to read it and then proceeded to walk along a pedestrian promenade. We stopped to check out the beach that is situated along the side of the Brisbane River.

After doing a quick check in with the tourist bureau we continued to walk along the river edge before taking one of the numerous bridges over the river and then up the main shopping mall, Queen Street.

I took in the general architecture of the city. Brisbane was, until today, the only capital city of Australia that either of us had not been to and now we were finally able to explore it.

We found a food mall to have our lunch and then continued to walk the streets. While here we decided to check out a couple of the local breweries. First was Newstead Brewing about 3km walk. The brewery was tucked away amongst other industries. We found a place to sit and Paul set about talking to one of the managers, Lauren.

Once the beers were tasted and the reviews written we continued on a couple of streets to Green Beacon Brewing. The brewery wasn’t open, but they were happy to let Paul in and try their brews as they worked busily around us. I was glad when he was finally all done and we could began the hike back.

Along the way I noticed a train station sign that we followed. This saved us some time walking and also assured us a seat on the near peak hour crush. We settled in for the hour-long journey back to Robina. I was beat and happy to have a bit of shuteye. The day had drawn cool and I was feeling the cold. I was happy that we finally reached the car and by 6pm we were finally home.

We said hi to Scott, then it was straight in to the van to cook up a quick dinner before we collapsed into bed.