Brisbane

13^th April 16, 2012 

We entered Morton Bay early in the morning, at around 6 am, and it is a long way through the channels to finally get to our berth in the river at Hamilton. The first thing we noticed was the amount of apartments being built around the cruise terminal precinct in Hamilton.

Sea Princess at the Cruise Terminal at Hamilton

Getting clearance, and off the ship, was pretty straight forward for transit passengers, and the weather was looking like we may get rain.

After disembarking we headed off to the ferry wharf at “Bretts Wharf”, a short stroll from the ship, to catch a City Cat into the city centre. We did get some rain, but it was only light.

The ferry ride to North quay, which is the nearest wharf to give access to the Queen Street Mall, took about 20 minutes with a number of stops on either side of the river, a very pleasant way to travel for $2.60.

Treasury Casino

Queen Street Mall

Once at North Quay , we had a short walk up to Queen Street Mall, where we spent an hour or so having a look around, and a real cup of coffee, finally !!  It was getting close to lunch time, so we decided we would head across the bridge to Southbank and find somewhere there to buy lunch. We ended up at a pub, The Plough Inn, but there was heaps of choice. It is incredible how they have developed this area from the bare site I recall at the time of the Brisbane Expo. There is something for everyone, including a large swimming pool (with a beach) for the kids, lots of open area, gardens, a rainforest, restaurants and entertainment venues.

Whilst at Southbank, we decided to have a look in the maritime museum there. We could see a number of boats on display, including Jessica Watson's , Pink Lady. We ended up spending a very interesting hour or so, including exploring and old frigate HMAS Diamantina which was in the old disused dry dock and most decks were open for inspection.

Ella's Pink lady

                                                               HMAS Diamantina

"Happy II" ( Can you believe someone sailed half way around the World in this !)

Having had a sizeable lunch and a good look around, it was time to catch the ferry back to the ship. We were back at around 5 pm, a bit early, as all aboard time is 6.30pm, but we had done enough walking and were ready to put our feet up.

The ship sailed at 6.45 pm, a little ahead of time. We decided to just have a pizza for dinner, as we didn’t feel like getting changed and had a big lunch.