Breakfast Creek to City Centre

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CATCHING the first train to Bowen Hills early on this cloudless morning, I headed to nearby Breakfast Creek following a couple of paths to its mouth at Ascot House. From here I followed the wide path upstream along the Brisbane River, the mirror smooth water disturbed only by the laminar wakes of the citycats.

After passing under a couple of very bright poinsiana trees in full bloom, the path followed an old wharf running along the side of the river passing what had once been a big industrial and commercial area, now long cleared and replaced with white apartment towers eight to ten storeys high looking over grassy parkland, the trail and the river.

The wharf had largely been converted to walkway, but several bollards and even some railway tracks remained here as a reminder of the area's past. When the wharfs did end, the path continued heading in between some of the apartment blocks before following a road passing what had once been a couple of large wool houses, now converted to apartments and commercial offices.

The path returned to the river at the Teneriffe citycat wharf, named after the suburb curiously after the Spanish city of Teneriffe in the Canary Islands, the most distant populated area from Brisbane on the other side of the world.

From here the path followed along what had once been more industrial area wharfs now with a lot more remnants of the bygone days clearly visible, with pieces of machinery, more factory buildings converted into apartment blocks, and a lot of signs about the different industries once flourishing here. Here a large crowd of people were running in the opposite direction as part of today's Saturday Parkrun. I reached an area dedicated to all the submarines based here over the years, particularly during the 2nd World War. I passed a large wool store built in 1926 now used for commercial businesses before passing more apartment blocks, some recently built, and others converted factories.

I reached the area where the park run had started as some of the runners started returning. From here the path narrowed as it went around the old Brisbane Powerhouse, now the Powerhouse Museum with the deteriorating remains of concrete wharves sticking out into the river where the tide was clearly coming in now.

From the Powerhouse Museum I followed the wide path into the very green New Farm Park. I explored the rose gardens and the Sandakan memorial before heading downstream through a residential area, then into Merthyr Road Park, a narrow strip of grassland between the river and apartment blocks.

Upon reaching the end of the park, the path followed a street before returning to the river at the start of the riverside walk/bikeway heading out into the river along floating platforms. I followed it approaching the central city before reaching the newly built cafe area under the Storey Bridge. After passing under the bridge I followed the path along the river under the very tall apartment towers towards the customs house. The path was closed there due to the construction of a nearby building, so diverted around it before returning to the river.

The Riverside Cafe area was closed ready for demolition to make way for more high rise buildings. I followed the path around it continuing past the new Kangaroo Point Bridge being built with several large barges on the river. Construction had largely been at a standstill this year due to the floods in February with construction effort needing to be redirected to repairs in other areas.

I eventually reached the Gardens Point botanical gardens where I stopped for lunch near the large billabongs. Small high clouds were starting to come over when I left the gardens and continued around the river following the elevated walkway over the river built as part of the new casino construction, its three buildings were a lot higher than they were when I last explored this area about a year ago, but construction of these have largely stalled due to supply issues and the casino being in a bit of trouble with regulators, and may not even go ahead here.

The end of the walkway was caged in under a construction area, including another walking bridge across to southbank. After passing the construction area I headed up to Queen Street, then explored some of the city streets, including areas where the new cross river railway project was still under construction.