Brisbane getaway

And my final getaway was the furthest yet - two days in Brisbane. It was my husband's uncle's 70th birthday party on Sunday and when we got the invite a couple of months ago we thought why the hell not, let's leave the kids overnight, hop a plane, book a nice hotel and have ourselves a mini holiday! The Monday was a public holiday in Canberra but not Brisbane (it was the Queen's Birthday holiday, Brisbane is not to my knowledge a republic, but doesn't feel the need for a public holiday) so we didn't even need to take the day off.

 

We took the first flight up on a very cold and foggy morning, got picked up at the airport and taken straight to the family lunch at Brad's cousin's house. Straight into the glorious Brisbane winter weather - it is so delightful. Warm, clear and pleasant ... there are four months of the year when I could definitely live there. The rest of the time, not so much. I hadn't been to the cousin's house before - this is the pool cabana!!! What an amazing spot for a party. The kids (and a European exchange student) went in the pool but it was a bit chilly for the rest of us.

After a lovely day with lots of food and lots of family we made it back to our hotel, which was very nice and had a beautiful view of the river. And on Monday we headed out to explore ... after a proper cooked breakfast. I love having breakfast out, I think it's my favourite meal to eat in a restaurant. And we sat outside, under a warm blue sky, watching people go to work (hahaha, and mostly wearing coats and scarves! Queenslanders are SOFT) before walking over the new pedestrian bridge to Southbank. 

 

We went to two extraordinary exhibitions at the State Library - one on the south sea islanders that worked in Queensland plantations in the late nineteenth century, and the second one based on a photographic business that took photos of peoples houses in the 1960s and 1970s and the State Library ended up with over sixty thousand of these photos in its collection. It was just incredible to see - ordinary houses but together giving you such a clear idea of what Brisbane must have been like. It totally has its own streetscape and architecture (mostly horrible brick suburbia to be honest) but of course my husband was loving it, because it is just the picture of his childhood. The exhibition included context, and individuals telling their stories, and explanations ... and it was mesmerising. 

After that we went to the Queensland Art Gallery and saw a really good exhibition of Goobalathaldin Dick Roughsey's paintings (which I knew nothing about at all, most ignorant, but now slightly less so) before stopping for a delicious lunch, walking back over the bridge and going to the Museum of Brisbane at City Hall. I hadn't been in the building before but Brad spent a moment reliving the glory of high school speech night. That is the stage where he received his year 11 Excellence in English award ... apparently his academic career has been on a downward slide ever since. 

 

Yes I am getting arty with the photo filters. The Museum of Brisbane had the up and coming designers exhibition which is the usual equal parts amazing, weird, hilarious and plain wrong. But we enjoyed it, and had a bit more nostalgia looking round the Brisbane part of the museum. Then we felt that was more than enough culture so went to some cafe underground for a coffee, poked around the shops, collected our bags and headed back to the airport. The plane was a bit late, so we didn't get home until after ten, but the boys were absolutely fine. I don't think they left the house, just sat around, played computer games, ordered pizza and slept. A lovely weekend for everyone.