Pinkyfluff had our ferry timings worked out perfectly, we alighted at the Queens St Wharf and were heading through town to The City Hall…we had an appointment with the Lord Mayor at 3.00pm…well kind of…..The city centre is leafy and green, beautiful sandstone and Victorian buildings with lacy balconies tower of you, towering over them are the new generation sky scrapers and the blue sky peeps out behind them all.
The Queen Street Mall is a giant leafy thoroughfare full of outdoor restaurants, seating areas, stages for public entertainment…there are even giant TV screens hung outdoors broadcasting sports and the news….
Behind the preserved building frontages a huge shopping mall has been ecked out behind it. Shops a plenty, Rosie missed out a little on the shopping…a great excuse to come back me thinks. The mass of people was tolerable, there was still plenty of personal space for Rosie, it is a really enjoyable to wander.
Around the corner and overlooking King George Square is The City Hall. Taking 5 years to build and officially opened in 1930 this Italian Renaissance style building was built on swampy ground at a cost of $1000,000, twice the original budget of the day. It has been closed for the last three years undergoing intensive renovations, it was re opened a couple of months ago and tours are being conducted of the Bell Tower and the Hall. The cost of these renovations….$215,000,000.
Pinky Fluff had booked us all in a for a 3.00pm tour of the clock tower. Standing 70 meters above the ground and based on St Marks campanile in Venice it is a beautiful imposing tower. It is accessed by a refurbished lift which is the only manual operating lift in Brisbane…Whipper asked the question of our guide. How is it manual?…you have to manually hold the controls in position to make it work as she slammed the screens shut and we motored smoothly and quietly up to the clock face.
The lift took us up to the level of the clock faces, there was no room for us to get out here…Rosie wondered if people outside in the square could see our silhouettes…The four clock faces on each side of the tower are the largest in Australia. Each clock face is 5m in diameter, the hour hands are 5f 6in, and the minute hands are 3m long. The clock has Westminster Chimes which sound on the quarter-hour…..this is why the tours were short, sweet and quick….we were on our way up to the bell tower….
….and we had to be back down before the bells chimed. This viewing platform was right below the bells and what a great view of the CBD. Beautiful clean glass encased the viewing platform and Rosie was lucky it was such and overcast day. Beautiful Photos.
This is St Andrews Church built in 1905 nestled amongst the tall towers, it looks beautiful both at street level and from up on high!
Down in the main lobby of The City Hall we waited for the main tour of the building to start. Shrieking of children reverberated and amplified off the cold marble entrance way, hold on, the noise was coming from our children…they were getting a little restless and Pinkyfluff magically whipped up snacks and drinks for afternoonsies. The Museum of Brisbane who shared the building was hosting the tour and off we went.
The Operator remembers the tour guides name as being Ken, Rosie thinks it was Dave….but he was good…in only the way a ‘camp’ museum curator can be. The renovation to this building has been done very sympathetically to retain the history of the original building. original foundations are left exposed so we can touch and feel the hugeness of them and appreciate the depth they go into the swampy ground. An original drainage system from the 1800s was uncovered and preserved. Plus the most amazing piece of WW2 memorabilia.
A wall was uncovered in what was once the men’s urinal, behind the plaster was graffiti, scrawled names, regiments numbers and messages were penned onto the wall from soldiers passing officially through the hall on their way to be shipped to Europe. A fabulous piece of social history and there it is, encased in glass in a service corridor leading to what is now the kitchens. So Cool.
In the centre of City Hall is a stunning auditorium based on the Pantheon in Rome. It is a is a large circular hall that can seat up to 2,500 people and is covered by a large copper dome that has over 8,500 ethereal shifting lights highlighting the oculus.
On the stage is a 4,600 pipe organ which was built in 1892 in Liverpool for the Brisbane Exhibition Building at Bowen Park. It remained in the Exhibition Concert Hall until it was moved to the Brisbane City Hall in 1927. The City Hall’s first organ recital was held in 1929. It is still being put together and everyone is excited about the opening recital….the concert will be free and Ken/Dave reckons there will be queues for hours beforehand.
Sitting on the comfortable newly refurbished auditorium seats listening to Ken/Dave relive City Hall stories was fab. Rosies knee was hurting a little and it was nice to take a load off. The seats were plush and there was plenty of leg room. YakYak thought the seats were fab too and ran back and forth banging each seat down in turn and watching them spring back…lucky they were so new and plush it was a relatively quiet game. ChubbyCheeks was also out of the pram clutching onto isle seat no 45. She is self supporting on her little wobbly legs and was enjoying a stretch. ChubbyCheeks also has two teeth. Down the bottom, two little ripper teeth in the middle of her mouth. The arm of the chair was at munch height…and after a couple of minuets ChubbyCheeks was happily gumming the arm of the newly restored City Hall theatre chair. Rosie had to laugh, after the talk and she was whisked away by PinkFluff, ChubbyCheeks had left her own mark on The City Hall…two tiny teeth marks scrapped into the wooden arm rest. Love it!
Just to the right of the audotrium is the Lord Mayors Chambers, he has a press room that is grand and light with huge windows overlooking the square. The carpets are lush, thick and expensively patterned. Ken/Dave took us into the room to look at the beautiful gold gilt Rosenstengel dresser with ornate mirror that the Hall had commissioned for the rooms in the 1930s by prestigious German Immigrant, now Australian…Ed Rosenstengel.
It looked stunning, and the City Hall and Museum were very proud of the history and quality of the piece. ChubbyCheeks was on the carpet, arms and legs were pumping as she crawled towards the dresser. Rosies eyes were widening in horror, it was like in slow motion, ChubbyCheeks stopped in front of the dresser, sat up, reached her arms up and was about to pull herself up on the $50,000 dresser….then, at the last minuet a frown formed on her face, the arms came down she rolled onto her back gurgling and smiling up at everyone. Rosie let out a breath….then sniffed….gads what was that god awful smell…it was ChubbyCheeks…she had filled her nappy at exactly the right time to distract herself…..now everyone was distracted. But it was the end of the tour.
PinkyFluff took the flagging girls home and Whipper, The Operator and Rosie wandered around the museums displays of the Brisbane River and The Expo 88 exhibitions. They were fascinating!
Outside the City Hall Rosie had to take a picture of the top of the hall…one of the interesting stories of the day reflected on how there was going to be an enormous Golden Angel statue crowning the top of the completed City Hall on opening day in 1930. Because the budget had been completely blown by then, $5 was given to the roofer, a resourceful, artistic fella and he was told to make something for the top of city hall. He went to an abattoir and bought a huge rendering pot, he removed the bands of steel from it and joined it all together with a bed stand and cistern parts from a toilet, behold, modern art and still standing the test of time. Nice Story!
Whipper took us around the corner to Anzac Square, a beautiful outdoor space commemorating the fallen in the Great Wars. There is an Eternal Flame and Tomb of the Unknown soldier in a beautiful rotunda.
Walkways link this area to the underground transport hub and sky walks cross the street bring you back to the Queen Street Mall. We stopped for a beer, at an outside bar in the twilight across from the Wintergarden. people were bustling home from work and surrounding bars were ebbing and flowing. In the warm evening air there was a nice unhurried vibe.
The Wintergarden is a shopping centre and food court which houses 60 speciality shops, during the Expo of 1988, and a first in Australia the food court was open 24 hours per day! This is the beautiful façade of the Wintergarden, at night time it lights up in an amazing light display.
We wandered home, the girls were scrubbed and ready for bed, PinkyFluff was making a real treat for dinner, Mushroom Risotto with Roast Veges and Marinated Kangaroo. It was delicious!!!! The meat was so lean and tender, cooked rare just how it should be. Great effort PinkyFluff!
Tomorrow is our last day in the city…we are heading out on bikes…Rosie is determined to give this a good crack!
