We decided to take advantage of the “Grand Final Eve” public holiday (plus an additional day off) and take a 4 day trip to Brisbane to check out the 3rd largest city in Australia and the capital of Queensland.  Here’s a map so you can familiarize yourself.  It is about a 2 1/2 hour flight from Melbourne.

Upon arrival, we took the train from the airport into the city and checked into our hotel.  We then began exploring this beautiful riverfront city on foot.

We even spotted this friend on our walk back to the hotel.  We hope it wasn’t poisonous, because he was awfully close!

That night we found a pub with a good beer list and and had a nice dinner.  We even chatted to a couple of real live Queenslanders for a bit about the US election and living in Australia.  They again confirmed a funny truth about Australians – they are all terrified of the bears in the US.  This is amazing to us given the volume of insects and animals in Australia that are here to kill us.

The next day was reserved for more walking around.  We explored some of the neighborhoods and walked along the river.

We took the free city ferry to get the views from the water as well.

As you can tell, from the photos, the weather was stupendous.  We stopped by the Southbank area for a drink and checked out the riverfront public pool that even has a sandy beach.  Seems like a nice place to hang out on a hot afternoon!  We watched the AFL Grand Final that afternoon and then headed out for some Thai food that evening.

We hatched a plan to take the train and a bus down to the Gold Coast the next day to get some beach time in. The trip is about 1 hour and 40 minutes each way.  The beach was spectacular, but the water was still quite freezing (~ 65F).  We spent a few hours laying on the beach reading before walking around and exploring the various towns on the coast.

We got a late lunch at a cafe across the street from the beach and then hopped on the bus to the train station.

We watched the NRL (Rugby League) grand final that night, but that sport is still pretty nonsensical to me.  It’s like a football game with no passing and hardly any scoring – like a 6-3 Steelers / Ravens game in the early 2000s.

The next day it was time to head home.  I don’t think that’ll be the last time we’re in Brissy.