Brisbane

After spending the last 6 months in more remote places, I wasn’t sure how I would feel being back in a city. But the city felt right. It’s always felt right. I love the public transportation, not needing to rely on someone else to get where I want to go. Not feeling the need to be home before the sun sets. The vibrant lights and the noises - it all calls to me.

With only a week to explore and not knowing if I’ll make it back to Brisbane, I felt a time crunch to be a tourist. I spent one evening spiraling down a planning black hole, but luckily Jo pulled me out and we made a tentative list to see but left if up to how we felt each day.

Due to a public holiday mid-week, my hopes to see the Brisbane City Market and flamenco music at City Sounds weren’t fulfilled. We wandered downtown and stopped at City Hall to go up the Clock Tower, the oldest running elevator and the largest clock in Australia. We meandered around town in the free ferry City Hopper. Saw sunset at Kangaroo Point and Mt Coot-tha. And even made it to a rugby game to cheer the Brisbane Broncos on to victory.

Brisbane isn’t mentioned much as a high tourist destination, but I really liked it! As the third largest Australian city, it has a more relaxed vibe than Melbourne or Sydney. I got San Francisco vibes with the rolling hills and bridges spanning the river.

Here we stayed in another Workaway, but a bit different than our previous homes. The family owns two houses - one they are currently renovating which is where they live and one they are trying to rent, which is where we stayed along with 3 other couples (Italian, Argentinian, and Singaporean). Our work was different each day - cleaning the attic and painting trim, filling a trench with gravel, and sorting timber. The schedule was only set the day before and the work was disorganized. Not our favorite stay, but it helped us save money and was quite the experience.