A one-armed long weekend in Brisbane

A year ago I visited Brisbane for the first time to stay with a friend. Breaking my wrist a few days beforehand wasn’t part of the plan.

I contemplated postponing the trip but medically it was OK (I just needed my cast to be split and a doctor’s note) so I decided it was still doable. However I was still getting to grips with losing the function of my primary hand and I also wasn’t excited about walking around hot and sticky Brisbane wearing a plaster cast!

The following week I chose a camo overlay – not sure why!

The 3.45am alarm was ridiculous but I got myself up and out the door on time. We live walking distance to the airport and like a panther I stealthed into the night. Except panthers don’t make loud rumbling noises with their wheelie bag – it was so noisy in the very still night that I carried it much of the way. Luckily this didn’t strain my one good arm.

My next challenge was completing the paperwork to leave NZ and enter Australia. Those forms are teeny when you have to write opposite-handed!

A dreary Brisbane morning greeted me, though it was only around 8am so she had time to get her act together. I had planned to take the train into the city but was instead met by a Brisbane-based relative, who had heard of my ‘plight’ via my mother. After stopping off to see his wife and grandson, John dropped me off at my friend’s place.

The purpose of my trip was to see Freddie who I met through work a few years before. She had been back in Australia for a while and it was high time to pay a visit.

Freddie and I in 2006

Being a Friday she was at work, so I changed and set off to explore.

It was still early but the temperature was already cranking. Tough bikkies though: the plan was for walking, followed by some walking, with maybe a spot of walking.

Wandering through The Barracks, a jail and policing centre in the 1800s and now a retail and entertainment complex (with coffeeeeeeeee), I continued over the railway tracks, down onto Roma St and into downtown. The heritage vibe, already very prevalent, was never far away.

The temporary loss of my right hand had caused a rethink of the small matter of TAKING PHOTOS over the weekend. The DSLR was impossible and my phone battery can’t handle hours of photo taking, so I hunted out and dusted off my little point-and-shoot. As will be apparent this had no bearing on the volume taken. However the wonky lines and framing and caused a lot of extra faffing in the editing process for these posts!

I followed my nose to the river, found a bridge and crossed over.

Here in South Bank was a promenade which, along with the by-now mostly blue skies, was giving me a really favourable impression of the city and its relationship with the river that snakes through it.

Reminding me a little of London with it’s riverside Eye, Brisbane too has a big Ferris wheel. It was the perfect day for such an activity and so I went on it – or in it, whatever.

There was still a few hours to kill until meeting Freddie and lots more riverside to explore.