Weatherford's Flat Stanley Adventures: Stanley's Australian Adventure- Part 3

Stanley had a big weekend in Brisbane!

On Saturday morning, Stanley went shopping in the Queen Street Mall. Queen Street is the main street in Brisbane. Most of Queen Street is closed to traffic, making it a huge open air walkway. Stanley met a couple of Police Officers on his walk up Queen Street Mall. Do your police wear similar uniforms?

In Australia, we don't tend to use the word "Mall" like you do in America. What you refer to as Mall's we tend to call "Shopping Centres". The biggest Shopping Centre in Brisbane City is called the Myer Centre. The Myer Centre has 4 levels of shops, and includes the Myer store itself as well. Myer's is an upmarket department store.

The first photo shows you the outside of the Myer Building in the Queen Street Mall.

The second photo is inside - showing the 4 levels of different shops. Before the renovations, there used to be a little train track at the very top level that children could ride around on - looking down on the shops below. The Myer centre also has a hidden 5th level which is below all the shops. On the 5th level is a bus transit centre. This picture shows the buses coming out from underneath the Myer Centre.

At the top of the Queen Street Mall is the Conrad Treasury Casino. It was built in 1889 and was the original location of the Queensland Government offices.

On the next block over is the Treasury Hotel. It is a luxurious hotel with Queen Victoria gardens in front. If you look closely, you can just make out a statue of Queen Victoria in front of the building.

On our way to walk across the river on one of the many bridges, we came across a Green Taxi. Green Taxi's are bicycle powered rides.

Here's another photo of one going across the bridge with some passengers.

There are many modes of public transport around Brisbane City. You can take a train, a bus or even a ferry. The City Cat's are what we call our ferries that travel the Brisbane River. This photo is of one of the ferries.

In the background is a place called Southbank. Southbank is where the 1988 World Expo was held. The World Expo is a large exhibition of all the different countries around the world. Can you see the big ferris wheel?

Stanley decided to walk across the bridge to Southbank. There are 16 bridges that span the Brisbane River (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bridges_over_the_Brisbane_River). The one Stanley walked across was 4 lanes wide and is called the Victoria Bridge. On the other side, you can see the remnants of the original bridge from 1906.

Stanley decided to get a closeup of himself in front of the Ferris Wheel. The Ferris Wheel is similar to the Big Eye of London in the UK. There are little pods that people can sit in to view the city.

This is a photo of the city from Southbank. You can see the Treasury buildings on the other side of the River.

We then took a ferry ride down the Brisbane River. Here is a photo of one of the ferry workers with Stanley.

On our trip we passed Kangaroo Point Cliffs. People can often be seen abseiling down the cliffs.

Here is a view of the city from the other side. It's called Riverside. At Riverside a paddle steamer called "Kookaburra Queen" is docked.

This photo is of the Story Bridge. The Story Bridge is similar to the Sydney Harbour Bridge because you can walk along the top of the bridge and look over Brisbane.