Walk this way

Unexpected treats

Traversing a city on foot, you are likely to see a lot more than when you go by bus, train, or by car. Riverside Drive on the south side of the Brisbane CBD is always a good place to begin your walk for a few reasons. There is free parking for a start, which is unheard of in a city of this size when you are just 1.5 Km from city hall. The only restriction on parking is that it becomes a tow-away zone between 12 midnight and 4 am. (Backpackers in campervans beware).

A few homeless people have taken up residence under the shelter provided by the bridges along this walk and so there are usually some mattresses, bedding and even the odd tent to be seen. There is a constant procession of runners, walkers, dogs and cyclists along the paths.

And lots of bridges!

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The red rectangle on the map shows roughly where you can park. The yellow arrows point to where there is some interesting street art. Today we are not walking much further than the Go Between Bridge because I am going to bale you up by looking at some artwork.

Under the “Go Between” bridge (named after a Brisbane Rock band), and not far from the local residents, is this work of Brisbane artist, Guido van Helten whose work can be seen all over the world from Iowa to Iran. I had not realised that he had done this artwork so close to where I regularly walk.

If you slow down and explore a few steps further under the motorway, more works of art unexpectedly pop up on the sides of the adjacent concrete bridge piers.

These two are just behind the Milk Factory.

And if you look around a bit more, there are others.

And a few more.

Recently, something new, below. Soon it will be obscured by a new building.

We have not got very far on this walk, barely a few yards. I’ll leave it at that for now. On the next blogpost I hope to cover another kilometre or two along the river, including the Gallery of Modern Art (GOMA) and the State Library.