On Thursday 16th February, Brisvegas joined the league of grown up world ports by receiving its first visit from the Queen Mary 2, currently the biggest ocean liner in the world.
The Brisbane cruise terminal is situated upstream from the Gateway Bridge (pictured). The Queen Mary is too tall to fit under the bridge, so had to dock at the Grain Terminal – hardly the most glamorous introduction to Brisbane.
The QM2 was due to sail past Nudgee Beach, about 15 minutes from home, at about 6am, so along with a small group of early risers, I went down for a look. Nudgee Beach is a favourite destination for early morning cyclists, some of whom were surprised to see so many people on the normally deserted beach front.
One of the cyclists told me he was from Belfast and so claimed the Titanic, obviously a step up from the QM2.
Our first sighting was less than impressive. It was raining heavily over Moreton Island, and the QM2 appeared hazily behind a moored container ship, but obviously much taller over the water.
For a while it came straight towards it, catching the early morning sun.
Then it turned towards the Brisbane River (and the airport) with the early morning sun behind it, so all we could really see was a silhouette. The Channel 9 cameraman who was there let me see it through the viewfinder of his $85,000 camera (Sony with Canon lens) and you couldn’t see much more.
This was about the best view to be had from Nudgee Beach, so I went home.
In the afternoon, I went to Luggage Point, on the opposite side of the river from the Grain Terminal, where the public were advised was the best spot to see the QM2. Luggage Point, the site of a water treatment works, is another of Brisbane’s less glamorous spots. There were no roads as such, it was just a case of avoiding the biggest puddles caused by the recent rain.
Even the Channel 7 News van had to take pot luck parking along with the rest of us.
An icecream van and a hot food van had taken advantage of the situation.
Once you found a safe place to park and negotiated a few hundred metres of the boggy terrain on foot, there was quite a carnival atmosphere of people oohing and ahhing and taking pictures.
I thought I could also detect something of a “them and us” feeling as the muddy people on our side of the river gazed across at the lucky passengers swanning about on the decks.
But at least I was able to take some better pictures than I had at Nudgee Beach.
Goodbye QM2, and happy sailing.
The Brisbane cruise terminal is situated upstream from the Gateway Bridge (pictured). The Queen Mary is too tall to fit under the bridge, so had to dock at the Grain Terminal – hardly the most glamorous introduction to Brisbane.
The QM2 was due to sail past Nudgee Beach, about 15 minutes from home, at about 6am, so along with a small group of early risers, I went down for a look. Nudgee Beach is a favourite destination for early morning cyclists, some of whom were surprised to see so many people on the normally deserted beach front.
One of the cyclists told me he was from Belfast and so claimed the Titanic, obviously a step up from the QM2.
Our first sighting was less than impressive. It was raining heavily over Moreton Island, and the QM2 appeared hazily behind a moored container ship, but obviously much taller over the water.
For a while it came straight towards it, catching the early morning sun.
Then it turned towards the Brisbane River (and the airport) with the early morning sun behind it, so all we could really see was a silhouette. The Channel 9 cameraman who was there let me see it through the viewfinder of his $85,000 camera (Sony with Canon lens) and you couldn’t see much more.
This was about the best view to be had from Nudgee Beach, so I went home.
In the afternoon, I went to Luggage Point, on the opposite side of the river from the Grain Terminal, where the public were advised was the best spot to see the QM2. Luggage Point, the site of a water treatment works, is another of Brisbane’s less glamorous spots. There were no roads as such, it was just a case of avoiding the biggest puddles caused by the recent rain.
Even the Channel 7 News van had to take pot luck parking along with the rest of us.
An icecream van and a hot food van had taken advantage of the situation.
Once you found a safe place to park and negotiated a few hundred metres of the boggy terrain on foot, there was quite a carnival atmosphere of people oohing and ahhing and taking pictures.
I thought I could also detect something of a “them and us” feeling as the muddy people on our side of the river gazed across at the lucky passengers swanning about on the decks.
But at least I was able to take some better pictures than I had at Nudgee Beach.
Goodbye QM2, and happy sailing.
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