This is a section of the mural that runs along the outside wall of South Brisbane train station. It goes for about 50 metres. I can't find much information on it (if you know, please tell me!) but further along from where this shot was taken, it says it was painted to celebrate the 2000 Olympics. Don't ask me about the meaning of it all, though; speech not enduring what the mind conceives? Hmmm... Still, it really brightens up the street.
Rock paintings on the Aboriginal Art Walk in Mt Coot-tha. I was very excited at my find and really impressed at how well preserved they were until I read on a sign nearby that they were painted in 1993. Ha!
Here's the hand stencil again - this time posing with its modern counterparts on a little "Graffarty" wall.
The Botanical Gardens in Mount Coot-tha are not just about plants. All sorts of wildlife are attracted there including this gorgeous looking spider. Click on the picture for a closer look - it really is pretty. This one, I'm reliably informed by Matthew Shaw at the inquiry centre of the Queensland Museum, is a Dome-web spider. Big fangs, painful bites initially but not harmful to humans after the initial chomp. I didn't really think about that when I was holding the camera millimetres from its head.
Thanks to Sandra for this beautiful shot, taken from her back deck in Grange on the north side of Brisbane. Around this time of year the nights are balmy with minimums rarely getting below about 20 degrees celcius (68f). Sound effects to go with this picture: cicadas, crickets and frogs and the hiss of an ice cold beer opening. Smell effects: jasmine laced with BBQ. Are you there yet?
Artforce are the company who organize and allocate Brisbane's traffic signal boxes. Every November they hold a competition for those boxes painted in the previous year. This year's overall winner is shown here. It's called "Renewal" by Scott Moorhead and, according to the Artforce website, is a tribute to 60s optical art. Like the doilies that you find in the windmills of your mind...
The balloon has drifted north and slightly west of the city...
With all the satellite imagery available to us now, roof views from above are much more familiar than they were. But I still think it's like looking under a city's bed: you see all the unsightly bits it couldn't find a place for like air conditioners, aerials and exhaust fans. Except for the Hilton on Elizabeth Street(top right) which appears to have a tennis court on the roof... posh, but surely that's an accident waiting to happen?
At 5.30am on a Saturday, there's not much noise about in Brisbane. Especially 1000 feet in the air. Here are the occasional sounds that I heard:
Welcome back to our balloon flight over Brisbane! You are directly over Kangaroo Point looking across the central business district (CBD) north-west towards The Gap.
After 3 years of gazing at the balloons silently drifting over Brisbane in the early mornings, I finally got to have a go! What a birthday present.
Without a doubt the most gorgeous shop in Brisbane I have been in is Libertine Parfumerie in West End. It's only been open a year but it has a grand old Parisian feel to it with shiny dark carved wood and posh chairs. When I went in for a nose (no pun intended) with my little girl, the guy in there really impressed us spraying all these little take-home cards with different smells for her wardrobe. Some of the scents are amazing... Fresh Laundry...Dirt (surprisingly nice!)... and Gin and Tonic (a scent I can acquire for free on a Friday after work if I try hard enough).
This is St. Mary's Catholic Church in South Brisbane, one of the most popular churches in Brisbane with a flock of 800. It is well known for its "rebel" priest Father Peter Kennedy. Many of his practices have been frowned upon by the Vatican including his wording of The Lord's Prayer ("Our MotherFather who art in heaven") and his political outspokenness (one example was the big banner outside the church last year demanding David Hicks be returned to Australia from Guantanamo Bay). His church recognises the land it is on as Aboriginal and has strong ties with the Aboriginal community in the area. Read an interview about it here. This is definitely not on as far as The Vatican are concerned and they have been threatening action for a while. A couple of days ago the Archbishop of Brisbane told the priest unless he tended his resignation, he would be fired as parish priest on 21st of February.
According to a friend of mine, back in the '60s Brisbane had seven restaurants. That's it. Seven.
This is Customs House shining in the early morning sun. It opened in 1886 and was a functioning Customs House for 102 years. Now it is a functioning functions house owned by the University of Queensland. You can have a fancy meal here, go on a free tour (sundays) or even get married here. Like so many of Brisbane's Colonial buildings, it stands out against a background of glass and steel. And of course a foreground of the mighty Brisbane River.
Cycling is really popular here in Brizzy. There are a few well-worn routes and this photo shows part of one of them. Each morning around 6am dozens fly by like a flock of multi-coloured, lycra-stretched advertising-birds. And during the Tour de France a lot of them turn into canaries...
This Praying Mantis likes to hang out on my finger lime tree. It's all knees and elbows anyway but with the sharp spines on the tree, it really looks like it is tip-toeing when it moves!
