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Queensland


Elizabeth Reef, with Middleton Reef in the distance. Australia! Dunwich. Cleveland, Wellington Point and Wynnum. Cleveland. Unfortunately, a cloud is casting shadow over Brisbane's downtown at the moment. Part of Griffith University. A station on a dedicated busway. Suburbs of Brisbane. The Gateway Bridge. When packing the bike, I used this part of the mudguard to protect to gear teeth, or to protect near... I usually find a piece of unused space by the road in front of the terminal to assemble or disassemb... The bike route into the city was easy to find. This view has just confirmed what I already believed: that this part of Australia is just as hilly a... The cycle route became a little less clear at one point but then another cyclist came along and show... Here's a shared pedestrian and cycle lane. I'm glad I didn't meet any pedestrians on it because the ... Brisbane. Here's another interesting tree. It's got orange flowers, which predictably leave an orange mess on ... The Gateway Bridge with boats and a plane. I think the boat on the left is one of the ferries which ... The trees here look quite tropical, although Brisbane is actually about 450 km outside the tropics. ... An unusual-looking shopping centre. Brisbane. I see Brisbane has hire bikes. Brisbane. A couple of buildings around here have these. I'm not sure what they are. Brisbane. Brisbane. Brisbane. Brisbane's Chinatown. Chinatown extends into the lobby of this bank. Brisbane. This bar goes back a long way. Brisbane. Brisbane. Brisbane. Brisbane. Two ibis in a flower bed. One just jumped out of the bushes and surprised the other. I'm glad I haven't still got a car; I'm back in the land of intractable parking signs. Brisbane. "First to Open...Last to Close... From my room's little balcony, I get a slight view of the park.... ... and some skyscrapers... ... including this weird one. This is something important to remember. It gets dark here much earlier than in New Zealand. Actuall... What's going on here? There seem to be loads of people having a public barbecue across the road from... Ibis looking for scraps. A flight crew checking out from the hotel next to mine. In the park. You can just see the amphitheatre through the trees. An ibis drinking. These things will probably look better once the plants have grown to hide the pots. In the park. This section of the park contains examples of subtropical plants. Unusual things. A topiary kangaroo. It looks like this real lizard found the stone lizard and decided to stage a tribute to Escher's ... The park is full of lizards. Agapanthus, and the type of tree which I first saw yesterday. This is where the park keeps its war memorials. Brisbane and a bottle tree. Brisbane. Ponytail palms. A big waterfall and the Bamboo Canyon. This smart-looking cafe with chandeliers is in the park. The building on the right is Roma Street Station. The ramp which starts next to me on the left and p... Work taking place on the nearly-complete Meriton building. Roma Street Station. The clock tower, now surrounded by other taller buildings, is on City Hall, which opened in 1930. It... Brisbane. Tourists in Brisbane. City Hall. There's an interesting selection of languages on these signs. Brisbane. King George Square, in front of City Hall. King George Square. Some old buildings in one of the major shopping streets. This one is having some work done. A popular window display. The Treasury Casino. One of Brisbane's many imposing buildings. Brisbane. the Brisbane River with one of the CityCat ferries. The bottom left one of those sweeping roads is a cycleway. Another cycleway. The boat in the foreground takes visitors to a place on the edge of the city which has koalas. It's quite attractive for a concrete car park. The riverside walk goes through the state library. In the library. I don't know what that sign is doing there. It's actually some kind of emergency phone but it does look a bit like emergency water. I've seen a ... A close-up view of one of those flame trees. The bridge on the right is just for cyclists and pedestrians. It looks a bit over-engineered. The riverside. Jet-skiers. In the same way that there was a footpath through the library, there's one through this restaurant. ... This statue is called ... City Hall again. I've come back here to go on a tour of the building. The lobby. The main auditorium takes up the bulk of the space inside the building. The room has been renovated over the last three years, during which an impressive LED lighting displ... We are now down in the basement. This used to be the gents toilet. It had seven layers of plaster, a... The guide is very excitedly talking about about the clock tower chimes, which are going on at the mo... The plans of each floor of the building are on display. The round room is the main auditorium. The outside of that illuminated dome. City Hall conatins the Museum of Brisbane, which I didn't actually find all that interesting. The on... This is Anzac Square. I'm not sure what she's doing. Anzac Square. This is part of the Central Station. I didn't see any more of it. Perhaps it's underground. Anzac Square, looking towards the main Post Office. A big koala. Now I'm by the Post Office looking back towards Anzac Square. The Post Office. Either there's more than one bike like this or somebody came and unlocked this one as soon as I left... A statue of a banker, and some ibis. This calls itself a traditional British pub. It doesn't look like one. Brisbane. I'm back at City Hall again, this time up the clock tower. They're still at it. View from the tower. View from the tower. The pillars which surround the bells. View from the tower. From the lift, you can see the insides of the clock faces. Kangaroos. I think this is one of the state government buildings. This is another. There is a aign saying that this is Alice Street. An interesting feature of central... The botanic gardens. A Parrot Tree. A Banyan. Some of its roots have been tied up or draped over other branches to stop them taking root... A platypus sculpture on a bidirectional chair. A circle of trees and more ibis. A parrot. The land on the far side of the river is Kangaroo Point. Brisbane. A bike. These sculptures have the names of figures from classical mythology but it doesn't say why. The Old Windmill, built by convicts in 1828 when this was a penal colony. It's now the oldest buildi... I'm not sure whether this is a private house of part of the hospital. A very succinct registration. A couple more of Brisbane's buidings. Brisbane looking sparkly in the twilight. It's only nine minutes later than in the previous picture ... City Hall looks somehow different. It's a pantomime. It's an outdoor pantomime! Silly big camera. It wasn't as simple as I had expected but I've now managed to find my way onto that cycleway which I... Under the motorway. Like that person last night, this cyclist is using a tablet computer as a camera but he's got a trip... I think this is what the cheese-advertising cyclist was photographing. Once I found the cycleway, getting out of Brisbane was very easy. Apart from one short section, it j... A bit further along the cycleway. The motorway, on the left, has roadworks. The vehicles doing the work are based on that ground on th... This is what the Brisbane River looks like where there isn't a city on it. These are bright! A fence to keep golf balls off the path. Bowls. I don't know exactly what this event is but someone told me that if you get a ticket, they will give... This building looks very patriotic. A bridge over the railway. According to a plaque, it's only been here for a couple of years. The signs are very insistent that there must be no electrical connection between those two poles. On... The cycle lanes are signed very clearly. Just a hotel that I passed. Another bridge, except this one appears to be closed at the far end. Ipswich. A run-down building. The gun from the second HMAS Ipswich, which was in service from 1982 to 2007. Ipswich. The blue building is one of two bike shops near this junction. Ipswich. You've go to be careful of those trees. The shopping centre in Ipswich. The tall structure in the distance is a periscope which should let p... I think I might have finally sorted out the problem with my expenses claims so now I've got to post ... The coins in New Zealand seemed quite intuitive but the Australian ones aren't. They are all silver ... This building used to be Ipswich Post Office but now the Post Office is in another office block roun... Ipswich. A suburban street with a wooden railway bridge. Most of the houses in this street are of this kind of style. The view from the wooden bridge which we saw a couple of pictures ago. A section of cycleway here seems to have disappeared. In trying to find it, I ended up at this littl... I was a bit alarmed when the smooth tarmac road that I was using suddenly turned into this but the a... Scenery. Before deciding to come this way, I checked a few points along the route in Google Street View to ma... A quarry. A view from one of the few shady spots on the road. It is very warm out here. That house doesn't reach the ground. Cows. The one on the left doesn't have green eyes; that's the tag in its ear. Pretty colours. Marburg. The community centre in Marburg. The Historical Society building is the original Shire Hall. According to the sign, the big rock is a... I'm not going to Darwin but this is easily the greatest distance I have ever seen on a serious road ... A view from a hill on the main road. It's not just in the land of hobbits that shower fittngs are low. This is the second hotel on this trip which has advertised no Internet access. Whenever I see that, ... One of the signs said that dinner and breakfast are available as room service so I've had fish and c... A church near some farms. I didn't get a better view of it. Scenery. I wonder what those are. This sign suggests a lot of different ways to get to Toowoomba, ranging from the direct route which ... Gatton. Houses. The Great dividing Range doesn't look as great as I had expected. A house and a tree. The signs say that all livestock being transported along this road have to be dipped at the next tow... Helidon. The station was opened in 1968 and is now looking rather run-down but there is a shiny new ... This used to be a bank. According to an information board, this street was packed with businesses in... The Post Office and some monuments. The telephone exchange doesn't look very impressive. These boards give some information about the town's history. I'm back on the main road now because it's the shortest route to Toowoomba, my destination for tonig... A flag flying on the top of the ridge. I don't believe it! Suddenly it says I can't go any further up here. There isn't a path branching of... A little over an hour ago, I was at this junction wondering whether to take the 14 km route along th... Trees. What are these? The scenery is different up here. For a start, the ground has become quite rocky. Cows. A toilet. Another house. This stream has been dammed here so that it now turns and flows under the road. There is soil erosio... I don't know what kind of animal this mailbox is meant to be. A cactus by the roadside. I think I'll walk this one! A house with a view. A viewpoint on the top of the Great Dividing Range. Toowoomba. View. A quarry. One of those drive-through off-licences. A surprising number of the hotels where I have stayed on this trip have had good reviews citing thei... Toowoomba is called Queensland's garden city because of its large number of parks and gardens. The g... ... and this was the only park I found. I did pass a much prettier one on the bike on my way into th... Here are some slightly more interesting buildings. Toowoomba. After several evenings in New Zealand where I wandered into town at dusk to find that it was after 9... A car. The hour markers for this sundial only go from 7 am to 5 pm because the days here never get any long... Just a little drainage channel, which passes under a wooden railway bridge in the distance. I don't happen to be in the most picturesque location to view it but this is known as the Belt of Ve... Last night's motel. These are the Darling Downs, the start of Queensland's "Golden West", the fertile land bey... A house with a clanking wind pump. The flat landscape. Wyreema. Scenery. I had hoped to spend the next few days riding through the Golden West but there weren't quite enough... A structure. A view through the heat haze. Scenery. Fields of horses. Another view. Nobby is only a small town but surprisingly it has this school of arts. Nobby. Nobby. This is the information centre in Nobby. The sign outside says it's the station. It doesn't say it's... Agricultural equipment. Clifton. Yet again, it's hot, and the real heat of the day is only just starting. This was a refreshing stop ... This is starting to feel a bit like my 2007 trip now. Plants. Cacti are becoming common along the roadside now. What interested me here were the two tall guyed masts but they are barely visible in the photograph.... Allora is clearly an agricultural town. This supplier of "FEEDS & SEEDS" is in one of ... Allora. I later read that PL Travers, who wrote ... Allora. Sorry it's out of focus. It's so bright out here that I can't actually see the image on the camera s... The road layouts of Toowoomba and Warwick are surprisingly similar and I have ended up staying in mo... The shower head here is high enough but tiny. It works perfectly well though... ... and it does strange things to your hair. It looks like St. Mary hasn't played tennis for a while but even a sight like this looks amazing in ... Warwick. This pedestrian underpass has lifts! Warwick. A man in an electric wheelchair with a cockatoo riding on his shoulder and chirping. I think this is just a private house. Warwick. Warwick. Warwick. The Post Office has unusual arches upstairs. This statue is in the middle of a traffic light controlled crossroads. Vehicles turning right have t... Yes I am! I think this kind of thing has become familiar enough to me now that Australia will look strange wit... Warwick. This is just part of the all you can eat buffet. Warwick. A typical street in Warwick. Most of the streets here have no footpath so I'm not sure whether I sho... Not the kind of birds I would normally see perching on wires, and they're not maning the kind of noi... The numbering of the television channels here is a bit confusing. This motel does a good breakfast. Look at all that bacon. A fine mist being sprayed on the bushes at my motel. Cyclists. My road out tof Warwick. I don't know why this layby has so much security, and a 30 minute stopping limit. Cows and trees. The first of several dead kangaroos I saw over the course of a couple of hours. Later in the day, I ... Flowers on a prickly pear cactus. Two of the figures in this scene are kangaroos. Okay, who wants a turn? A sculpture. I've now climbed into a region of high ground known as the Granite Belt. It's cooler than most of Qu... All over Australia, there are "big" objects serving as landmarks. I passed the Big Orange ... I still haven't seen a train on these tracks. Crates for fruit. I do like these little railway bridges. I had been expecting to spend all day on the main road but for 21 km, there's an alternative route p... Okay, I'm finally convinced now that this railway is no longer used. The Heritage Museum in Stanthorpe has buildings from all over the region. One of the sheds on the le... Stanthorpe. Stanthorpe. It's a chocolate cheesecake with jelly in it. the woman in the cafe said here son came up with the i... I'm not quite sure what message they're trying to convey with "out fruit is for us". Did t... Today is quite hilly. Scenery. The town of Wallangarra, where I am, is in Queensland but the only hotel is over there in New South ... The former station in Wallangarra. The stripe across the platform on the right marks the border betw... Another border marker.