Day out in Brisbane

Over the Easter holidays my brother and his family were here in the Gold Coast, visiting from the United States. One of our big days out was a day in Brisbane. The main purpose of this was so that Mike could bring his kids to Bluey's World. Mike's kids are 6 and 1 1/2 years old, so the perfect age for this attraction. My kids, at 7 and 10, have 'aged out' of Bluey - they still watch it occasionally, but it does not hold the same awe and wonder that it did for them a few years ago. 

That said, we decided that our family (and my parents) would skip Bluey's World, heading to South Bank in Brisbane first, with a plan to meet up with Mike's family for the afternoon.

When we travel to Brisbane for a day out I normally try and get our family to take the train. It's only 50 cents each way, and takes about an hour. We do need to drive about 10-15 minutes to a train station first, making the whole journey about 1.5 hours, compared to about 50 minutes driving time and what can be a hefty parking fee. I don't mind a long train journey - it's a good excuse to read in my opinion - however that hour can seem pretty long when you have kids with you! We opted to drive this time, as there were track upgrades happening on the train line over the Easter holidays, which meant an extended journey with bus replacements, bringing the total journey time to over 2 hours each way. Even a public transport aficionado like myself agrees that that is just too much for a day trip! I did find out that during the week you can park in South Bank near the museums and galleries for $18 for the day, which wasn't bad for inner city parking.

As soon as we arrived, around 10 am, my mom and I headed to an exhibition I'd been wanting to see at GOMA (The Gallery of Modern Art), while my dad and Andy took the kids to the Museum of Brisbane. The exhibition was entitle 'Presence' by artist Olafur Eliasson. I'm not very knowledgeable when it comes to art, but I do like to walk around exhibitions and galleries looking for something that grabs my attention. 

This exhibition was not a "look at the painting on the wall" type of exhibition; it was more a series of different experiences. The first room was a series of photos from Eliasson's home country of Iceland, often time lapses of landscapes showing hte impact of climate change. The most interesting part of this room was a piece of volcanic rock suspended and rotating in front of a concave mirror. It doesn't look like much until you stand in the right spot, and then you can see a magnified view of the rock, rotating, like a small piece of earth.

A few of the rooms had large sculptures showing the effects of light and movement, and yet another was a light mist that you could walk through, creating a rainbow illusion when viewed from different perspectives.

There were playful sculptures using the effect of mirror and light, such as this effect in which there was only one actual bulb, but even in person it was difficult to work out which was the actual bulb, and which were reflections.

The centerpiece of the exhibition was a large yellow glowing orb, and again this was actually only about an eighth of a sphere, yet the effect made it seem like a full sphere taking up the corner of a room.

At the end of the exhibition was a room full of prototypes and geometric experiments in various stages of completion. The maths teacher in me was wondering how I could incorporate this into a lesson. A few years ago I worked with a gifted student who loved art, and I was constantly trying to find things that would interest her that used both maths and art, and this would have been right up her alley!

Finally there were two very interactive rooms; the first was The Cubic Structural Evolution project, where anyone can add to the structures and creations built entirely from white Lego.

And to finish was the Riverbed room, a room inspired by the streams created when the snow starts to melt in Iceland. I can't say this was my favourite part of the exhibition, but the scale of it was certainly impressive.

All it all it was definitely an exhibition worth seeing, and if I had been able to convince the kids to come along I think they would have liked it. On the other hand, it was pretty nice to have a quiet experience viewing something like this just with my mom, so in reality I wasn't too disappointed that they didn't want to come along!

After the exhibition we had a coffee in the gallery cafe, enjoying the sunshine and riverside view before heading back to the chaos of the kids.

I'm not sure how long my dad, Andy and the kids lasted at the museum, but when we met up with them they had also managed to fit in a coffee and snack while the kids played in the huge playground.

As we were finishing up, Mike and Ashley let us know that they were finished at Bluey's World, and so we headed off to meet them at Howard Smith Wharves for lunch. 

The best thing about spending the day in Brisbane is that public transport can be by ferry, which is so much more enjoyable than a bus or tram! That makes it feel like the journey is a part of your day, rather than just a means to get from A to B.

Howard Smith Wharves is a collection restaurants and bars located riverside, under Story Bridge. 

We settled into a brewery where we were able to sample a few beers (who doesn't love a beer flight!) and enjoyed lunch along the river, complete with water dragon visitors! 

Inside the brewery were some old school pin ball machines and a table tennis table, which, along with a small playground kept the kids amused for most of our lunch. 

After lunch we hopped back on the ferry back to South Bank. Again the ferry ride in itself was a fun part of the day, this time Cam and Ollie were able to sit together on the top deck. 

We then spent a few hours at the Street Beach, where all the kids happily played in the water. As usual it was hard to get Ella out of the water at the end - sometimes it feels like she could play in the water forever! 

Mike and Ashley then took the ferry back to Howard Smith Wharves where they had parked, and the rest of us flirted with the idea of staying in Brisbane for a drink before heading off, but in the end we decided we were a bit too tired. 

It was a good day out, and as usual when we head into Brisbane, I left thinking "we must make the effort to come here more often!"