Dave set his alarm early today to go for a run so by 7 he was on his way. I just had a lay in!
We left the hotel about 9.30 and walked across Kangaroo Bridge to a bike hire place we had found. By 10 we had two mountain bikes and were on our way. The sun was shining and it was getting quite hot.
First stop the iconic Brisbane sign at the end of the South Bank, a bit further on we crossed the river on the Kurilpa pedestrian bridge and stopped for omelettes and coffee at The Coffee Club outside the Supreme Courts. There was a free exhibition in the court house so we went inside, went through security and had a little nose around.
We then cycled on the north side of the river passing the city, the Botanic Gardens, past the Howard Smith Wharves (where we had lunch yesterday), under the Story Bridge, around New Farm, past the Powerhouse, through Tenerife (a very affluent area) to the next bend in the river where we found The Breakfast Creek Hotel. Admittedly this probably was in a better setting before they built the motorway outside but what a pub. With 3 huge separate bars, bizarrely selling different types of drinks in each, as well as a massive outside area, we stopped for a well deserved drink. Dave a beer (of course) and myself a Hard Rated Lemon, basically an alcoholic (4.5%) lemon juice.
The public bar that we were in had lovely air conditioning and it was a bit of a shock going back outside as it seemed to have got even hotter!
Deciding to now head back we cycled back the way we came until we got to the Story Bridge which we cycled across, we then crossed back almost immediately on the Kangaroo Point Bridge, cycled through the Botanic Gardens and round to the casino where we crossed the river again using the Neville Bonner Bridge before cycling back along the South Bank past Kangaroo Cliffs to the bike hire shop. Total distance just under 20 miles!
With a slow walk back over Kangaroo Point Bridge we returned to the hotel for another one of our free drinks. Just before jumping in the shower we put a wash on and it was done by the time we were ready to go out. Hanging it all on any available space in the room, we put the heating on in the room and went out at 7.00.
Our first stop was Death and Taxes (the only two things in life that are certain as quoted by Benjamin Franklin – 1789), an extremely cool bar to grab some cocktails in. Unfortunately I didn’t really read up on it very well and they didn’t do any food, but hey ho.
So my first cocktail was a Rick Dalton (a character in a Quentin Tarantino film) similar to a whiskey sour. Dave had a beer.
The second a Dominic Torreto (another fictional character this time from the Fast and Furious series), similar to a Whiskey Highball but very sweet. Dave joined in and had a Will Hunting (the maths genius) based on a hot toddy and actually very nice.
By the time we had finished the cocktails it was 9.30 so basically no chance of getting dinner anywhere, so we walked round to Queens Mall and found a MacDonald’s – needs must!
We then decided to walk to the big beer hall – Felon Brewery as we had seen there was live music on. The atmosphere of an evening was so different from our lunch time experience, it was buzzing. We only grabbed one drink as it was a dj set which isn’t really our thing, lucky actually, as we then managed to get the last city cat boat back (at a cost of 25p) to the QUT garden stop and then just take a very late walk through the Botanic Gardens back to the hotel.
