Brisbane river morning

The theme letter for our ‪‎travel pics this week is Y – for You should see the view!

For the final picture in this series, we’ve returned to our home city, Brisbane.

The city’s based around the Brisbane River, and the CBD is fed by five road bridges, two pedestrian bridges and a railway bridge – the Story, Captain Cook, Goodwill, Victoria, Kurilpa, William Jolley, Merivale and  Go-Between bridges.

This picture is from beside the Captain Cook bridge – a freeway bridge funnelling tens of thousands of vehicles a day into, through, and past the CBD.

It’s a not-particularly-special concrete span bridge – but from this angle, on the bike-path that meanders beside the freeway, it’s a pretty view.

The pedestrian bridge glimpsed through the trees on the left is the Goodwill bridge – a pedestrian and cycle bridge which somehow sums up Brisbane.

The bridge was built to commemorate the Goodwill Games – Ted Turner’s attempt to replace the Olympic Games with 4-yearly games of his own.

The Brisbane games should (logically) have been held 2002 – but because the Southern Hemisphere winter comes earlier than the Northern, the games were actually held in 2001.

The Brisbane event was the last ever held – and were generally regarded as largely unsuccessful.

Which was reflected in the namesake bridge: it was over-budget, completed long after the games ended, and for a while appeared to be a white elephant.

It’s picked up usage since – and now is a major thoroughfare for walkers, joggers, cyclists, and those accessing the Griffith Uni Southbank campus on one side and the QUT Gardens Point campus on the other.

And as you can see, on a still Brisbane morning the bridges and river are a beautiful backdrop to those commuting by bike or exercising on the riverbank.