A CITY WALK Part 1

We went into the city to visit the Apple Shop to get our iPod fixed. I nagged TOH into going for a walk after our business was done. He didn't complain too much as he enjoys walking in the city rather than in the forest (go figure). Anyhoo we set off from the Queen St Mall down to the river side.

I felt dwarfed by the tall.tall buildings but the architecture was interesting. The city council was so excited to have TOH walking around the city that they rolled out the red carpet for him. He is giving the royal wave. (Actually the city is preparing for the Brisbane Festival, which started today.)

We have two ferry systems now. The CityCats, which are quite big hovercrafts and these little ferries called CityHopper. These little ones are free and you can hop on and hop off all along the river.

We walked along the river edge passed the posh Stamford Hotel towards the City Botanic Gardens. We took a rest and admired the visiting yachts.

Behind us were apartment towers and the iconic Story Bridge. It looks like the council should provide bike stands for those who cycle into town.

We checked out some old buildings. The old Naval Offices dated 1900.

The Port Office, both are now businesses.

Then we entered the gardens. This tree obviously knows Spring is here. The weather was beautiful,  not too hot or too cold.

There are many walkways and cycle paths through the gardens but I spotted an interesting sculpture off the main walkway in a mini rainforest.
 It is called “Jemmy Morrell and the Brolgas” by Lindsay Dean. Jemmy Morrell was a sailor who was shipwrecked on the Great Barrier Reef in the 1840’s. He lived with aborigines for 17 years.
After a few snaps we were back on the path heading towards the Goodwill Bridge and South Bank. (next post) 

BRISBANE'S STAIRS TO HEAVEN

When we visit TOH's specialist we walk from Central Station up the steep hill to the Wickham Terrace, Brisbane's street of specialist doctors.  There are stairs connecting Edward St. to Wickham Tce. They are called Jacobs Stairs, which is a biblical reference to Jacob's stairs which connected heaven to earth. When you look up the stairs only the steps are visible but when yo look down the stairs only the landings are visible.
Research tells me that the stairs were renovated in 2009 and painted red except the landings were painted different colours and at night there was a light show projected onto the landings.
However, my shot shows the landings are red too. I don't know what happened to the rainbow colours.
Did you notice some unusual sculptures at the foot of the stairs? I'll show you more closely below.

photo from the state Library of Queensland. 

In 1915 there was a path way leading from the shopping area up to Wickham Tce where well to do people lived looking over the city. In 1920 stairs were made. They were renovated in 1947, 1961 and 2009.
Next to the stairs is King Edward Park. It all looks a bit different today but a nice place to relax and wait for doctors appointments.

At the bottom of the stairs are four sculptures. I always thought that they looked like something out of 'Starwars' but I was wrong.

They are called 'Form del Mito' or 'Forms of Myth' made by Italian artist Amaldo Pomodora in 1983 for the world Expo held here in 1988.

 It was hard to fit all four pieces into the phone camera lens. The four pieces represent the characters from the Greek tragedy 'Agamemnon.' The pyramid is Agamemnon - power.

The round one is Clytemnestra - ambition.

The tall rectangular one at the back is Aegisthus - machine and the short one on the left is Cassandra - prophecy. Well it fooled me I still think they look like 'Starwars' characters.