River Fire

Saturday - River Fire

On the Saturday, we went & caught up with a mate (who I won't name because all my other mates may well get their noses out of joint because we slipped in & out of town without visiting) for lunch. Next time clan. I promise. That night was a family and family friends seafood feast at mum & dad's. Enjoyable & delicious at the very least.
Just before dinner, Kerri & I wandered up the road to the Toowong Cemetery for a nice outlook over the city for the fire works spectacular to come. We weren't alone. There were at least 50 living people (and the usual residents) with the same idea just in the small area we were.
Back in the day..... there used to be a fireworks show every year that included fireworks set off from barges on the Coronation Drive reaches of the river and culminated in an F-111 flying low along the river & performing a dump & burn on the way out. Back then it was called the FM104 Sky Show.The current era version involves fireworks being fired from barges & buildings from the Storey Bridge to the Regatta, but still involves the F-111 dump & burn. The current version is called the "River Fire". We were lucky enough to be in Brisbane on the weekend when the River Fire was on.The F-111 Dump & Burn is unique to this particular aircraft. For those not in the know, the F-111 has the ability to do an emergency dump of fuel from its tail that is then ignited by the exhaust of the aircraft. When they do it at night its quite the sight. The last one I saw was at RAAF Pearce near Perth, but it was a day time affair. This year there were two & they lit up in clear view of us despite being some kilometres away from us. It was no less spectacular.This year was the last time the F-111s will close the show because the government/RAAF are retiring these old war birds that first saw service in the Vietnam war. They were a key instrument in the gulf wars but are now a maintenance nightmare & will be replaced in the next few months with Super Hornets. After briefly buzzing the city they headed straight toward us & over our heads & into the stratosphere. As we were walking back to the house, we could smell the burnt Jet A1 in the air. All very exciting & not just for me. It was one of a few unexpected bonuses from the trip.

Bulimba for Lunch

We stopped at Bulimba for lunch. We stepped off the ferry & wondered whether mum had given us a bum steer. I called her to find out how to get to the cafe' district. Our instincts proved to be correct in the end but we could so easily have ended in a very frustrating walk in the wrong direction. As it turned out we were headed in the right direction & managed to find a cafe/pub that served excellent food for a very reasonable price. We were well impressed. Brisbane has come a long way from the sleepy big town that I grew up in. Its a step in the right direction in my opinion. Brisbane always had the warm weather (too warm in summer for this little black duck) but now there's another level of interest.

After lunch we headed back to the ferry. This pelican was watching over proceedings.

We stopped at South Bank briefly because one of the staff on the Cat had told us there were a couple of F-111s were doing a dry run at 2.30 for the Riverfire show the next night. It bought back memories of dad taking us to RAAF air shows at the Amberly air base when I was young. The whole see the plane then hear the noise seconds later thing. I tried with no success to take photos of these aging warplanes, but they were hooking it. All very exciting for me, and surprisingly, Kerri. My camera wouldn't focus quick enough to take the shot. More on the F-111s later.

We finally made it back to the Regatta stop & after a phone call to mum, dad came & found us at the bottle shop. After stocking up on "supplies", he gave us a lift back "Up the Hill" to their place (which used to be called home many a year ago).

City to Bulimba

Heading down river toward Morton Bay we noticed that living by the water has become very popular (and expensive) since the Brisbane City Council decided to clean up what used to be a brown muddy smelly river. These days it could even be said to having a blue tinge. Many of the now heritage listed disused wharf buildings have been converted to fairly expensive riverside accommodation and restaurants. The building immediately below I think was a grain termial once upon a time. The one next down is the old Wool Shed.The photo below is Breakfast Creek. Its a serious restaurant district including the famous Brecky Creek Hotel. Legendary Sunday sessions, steaks & beer on the wood.

The Hamilton wharves in the photo are about as far upstream as major shipping comes these days. Now that the cement plant is now located 600kms north in Gladstone & ships don't need to come upstream, the dredging of the river no longer happens. This would appear to be the major contributer to the river no longer being brown & silty. Go figure.

If you look closely, you'll see the Gateway Bridge. It's the bigest, highest & furthest down river of the many bridges. It is in the process of being twinned. When we were there, the twin was a matter of a couple of weeks from being joined in the middle.

The City Reach

Around the next bend from South Bank is the main city reach of the river that runs from the gardens, past the Riverside centre all the way to the story bridge.

Below are the Kookaburra Queens mored at the Riverside centre.

Below is a government (or Ex-government) building that I've never noticed in my years of living in Brisbane. I think it much have undergone a restoration in recent times. I should know what it is because dad used to work in it or near is some decaded ago when he was an accountant, but I don't. Sorry.The bridge below is the Storey Bridge. It's been there since I can remember. It looks much more impressive at night when it's lit up.

City Cat Cruise

Friday - River Cruise

We had a bit of a lie in before heading off for the day.

The plan was to jump on the City Cat & cruise the river for the day & have lunch somewhere along the way.

Mum dropped us down at the river at the Regatta hotel. We were lucky enough to walk straight onto a cat & we were off down river toward the city.

The city reaches are littered with bridges of all shapes & sizes including the new bridge below that will connect the north to south bypassing the heart of the city.

The next bridge along is the rail bridge.This horrible thing below is the new foot bridge. It is so ugly! Stupid arty architect students. The question is who let them get away with it? Remember contemporary doesn't need to mean ugly peoples.Adjacent to the CBD is South Bank. It's come such a long way since it original development for Expo '88. The new ornament, as is the case in many world cities now that "Big Pricks" are out of fashion, is the big Ferris wheel. The world went mad while we were in Canada starting with the London Eye. When we got back, Perth & Brisbane both had one. Weird.

This bridge is actually functional. It connects South Bank to The QUT campus at Garden's Point. Coincidentally, it connects the university to the pubs & clubs end of South Bank. Suspiciously convenient don't you think?

Monorail

Before heading for home we did a lap on the monorail. It's always nice to get a view of Seaworld from above.

We stopped one last time at the polar bears before heading out of the park & back to Brisbane.

Back to the Bears

We couldn't help but go back to the Polar Bears. Who wouldn't? They weren't as active as earlier in the day, but they were still up to mischeif as you can see below with the milk crates.

Nap time. It's a hard life being a bear who lives in an air conditioned den with a huge swimming pool.

Check out the paws on these beautiful animals!

Rides

After the dolphin show we found some lunch (and got gouged for it) then headed to the rides.

The Cork Screw was always a good ride but I forgot how short it was.
Seaworld has a new one called Jet Rescue which is a ground level roller coaster that packs a surprising punch. Instead of being dragged up to the top of the roller coaster track, you are launched from where to climb on board. It's a really cool ride but they seemed to be having some reliability problems which was a shame because we only got to go on it once.

The ski show is under renovation so we didn't get to see it this time. Pity because it was always a highlight.

Dolphin Show

After the sharks we scurried of to catch the inevitable dolphin show. It never loses its appeal. As always, the dolphin show is a hit with the kids. I'll let the photos do the talking now.

Tastey Residents

The Sharks must be pretty well fed because aside from not eating the divers, they don't eat the huge table fish in the enclosure. Above are some very old pink snapper (or nobbies if you live in Queensland) and below are Spangled Emporer (or Norwest Snapper if you're a Western Australian). There were also Yellow tailed Kingfish & a couple of varieties of trevaly to name a few.

Shark Bay From Below

The underwater viewing area allows you to come face to face with some of these formidable predators. I would not want to get near one of these on one of my scuba dives let me tell you. Most of them are bronze whalers but there are a couple of big bull sharks as well.

Meet the boss. Below is the biggest meanest inhabitant of the reef. This is the same 8ft bull shark from the previous post. Nasty lookin' yes?
There are also some not so cranky sharks in the big pond. Below is a shovel nosed shark. They're very busy bottom foragers.

Shark Bay From Above

Now for the nasty sharks. You can see the dark shadows under the water in these photos. They're the types of sharks that demand respect like bronze whalers & bull sharks. There are also some Shovel nosed sharks as well.

If you look closely to the top of frame in the photo above, you'll see a couple of scuba divers. They're "cleaning the fish tank" while being circled by some pretty big sharks with very bad attitudes. They had a shadow boat with them the whole time. The bronze whaler shadowing the divers would be pushing 5 feet long.

The bull shark in the below photo is easily 8 foot. Nasty piece of work that one let me tell you.

What I like about this enclosure is that the sharks behave naturally and swim about as they please instead of doing circles like in all the other shark pens I've seen. It's fairly typical of the way Seaworld on the Gold Coast set up they're animal environments with lots of room for the animals to swim freely.

Shark Bay Reef Section

Next Stop was Seaworld's newest attraction (although its a few years old now), Shark Bay. They were just finishing off the landscaping & scenery last time I was at Seaworld.

Pictured above is a segregated shallow reef section which is full of colourful fish & small rays that are typical of life in the reef lagoons on the coral atolls on the Great Barrier Reef.

Below is the reef enclosure for the smaller shark species like Black Tipped Reef Sharks & Leopard Sharks. The Leopard Shark is the lazy one sitting on the bottom in the second picture.