10/02/2026 Movie World

Once again we started the day with a train ride, this time heading South towards the Gold Coast to Movie World. The trains here seem to be a bit like Auckland Motorway, prone to small things causing massive havoc. This morning a train broke down a little further up and this caused a load of delays and grumpy passengers. Mental note that Brisbanites don't seem to be too tolerant of inconveniences.

The first proper rain of the week, just enough to make the day extremely humid and uncomfortable. This was definitely next level heavy air.

As is typical, the rain quickly stopped and gave us sunny skies. The train rides don't really have much in the way of scenery, very few hills and either walls or industrial areas along the tracks. Loads of development going on as well, massive great areas with construction well under way. I'd say if you're a tradie, work would be extremely easy to get, and it's only going to get busier as the Olympics in 2032 gets closer.

We got the train first thing in the morning, so breakfast was the next priority. The train doesn't go directly past the theme parks, so you have to get a bus to finish the trip. We took the gap to wander over to the Westfield next to the station. And as you can see it is exactly the same as every other Westfield.

Pretty average breakfast, rip off on the toast and they still love their English style back bacon (I had to Google it to see what it was called).

It's quite funny they advertise the park as "Hollywood on the Gold Coast". I hoped it wasn't because Hollywood is a bit of a shithole, full of homeless and smells nasty.

One thing I noticed immediately and throughout the day was that Movie World took a lot of ideas from Disneyland, and not very well. When you first walk in, you're met by a plastic Bugs Bunny with out of order roller coaster rides in the background, compared with a bronze statue and the Sleeping Beauty Castle.

The park overall was in good shape though, everywhere was tidy and clean, none of the areas had worn out or broken fittings.

Louie is far braver than I am, and has a far stronger stomach when it comes to going around and upside down, so I skipped most of the rides to save the cleaners from having to pick bits of my breakfast from the top of the palm trees. All of the rides had a pretty good entrance, setting the scene before you got on. They charge you $120 to get in and then another $145 for the express pass thing to skip the queues. There weren't really any queues today, and when you consider that Disneyland costs $140 (AUD) to get in and $35 for the express pass - Movie World isn't very budget friendly. Of course the US is more expensive overall, but Movie World is copying and competing with it, and coming off a lot worse.

The first ride I did go on was entered through the Justice League hall. No idea who most of these characters are, but it did give some atmosphere, even if some of the fittings looked like they had been repurposed from a Medieval Times dinner and show. 

Waiting to get onto the ride, you get to put on some stunning 3D glasses. It is important to note that today was very hot and extremely muggy. So much so that I probably wasn't firing on all cylinders brain-wise. The ride was on a cart thing, you go along a series of corridors and shoot a laser at alien beasties, both on video screens and on the walls. I forgot we had 3D glasses on, so when the aliens started to leap out into my face, I may have screamed and waved my arms about a bit. Great times.

Louie also scored higher than me in the shooting count dammit all. 

Once again, a bit of a copy from Disneyland, this time Main Street USA. Pretty much a copy, other than the enormous canopy to shield from the insane Australian sun. We had a look in the shops for some tat to bring home but it was all DC stuff, and nobody really likes that. Surely there's other properties that Warner Bros has that they could use.

All the shops and stalls were themed and pretty well done, but all the staff were wearing dark blue uniforms, they've missed an opportunity to have a bit more immersion.

Going from the DC town bit it went into a carnival side show area and then into a Wild West section. I think the Wild West was kind of based around the Will Smith movie from 1999, but it was a bit like a lot of the park. It was a jumble of themed areas that were looking for a reason to be there. It didn't have a flow or a strong theme. What they did have was well made, but it didn't make a lot of sense.

For some reason there is a Scooby Doo ghost ride, I guess they had some Halloween castle thing and needed to make use of it. Warner Bros owns Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, Game of Thrones, Friends, The Matrix and Terminator - surely they could do something with those that would be far more interesting?

Dotted throughout the park were different Batmobiles from different movies. Again, it seemed like they just didn't know what to do with this stuff so they put it in corners where they fit. This one was tucked in a corner behind the side-shows.

The Wild West, for no adequately explained reason. There was a small screen playing bits from the Wild Wild West movie at the back, but that was about it.

Off to the side was a whole bunch of set pieces from various games & comics featuring the baddies of Batman. These were really well made but they didn't really have a reason for being there.

Lunch of champions. For some reason they thought having hot food on top of a cold drink was a great idea.

I should have gone in the Dirty Harry cafe for some Mexican. Yeah, Dirty Harry who was known for his love of all things Mexican. Did they just have a list of franchises, a list of shops they had and just randomly match them? None of it made any sense.   

There was a live Stunt show which was quite good, they had a story about some spies stealing a bag and the Force Five Fuckwits or something were chasing after them. Very cheesy and tongue in cheek but gave them plenty of reason to have cars, bikes, a buggy and for some reason a floating tank thing.

For reasons there is a new section dedicated to the Wizard of Oz. Like most of the other areas, this was for the sole purpose of giving some lead up to the ride. They could have had a sort of museum or exhibit, it would have been great looking at the quality of the entrance area. The Movie World design and construction team are very good at what they do. The planning and writing team, not so much.

To finish off the day, there is a parade through the town. Lead by Marilyn Monroe for some reason. I guess because she is associated with Hollywood but maybe they had a spare costume?

Bugs Bunny and Sylvester - that makes sense.

This was awkward, these guys were just walking down the street. Wonder Woman had some Greek castle thing you can see in the background but these poor sods were legging it. The entire parade lasted about 5 minutes, and then they came back again. Looking at the photos, I spotted that while Robin walked down the street, he got a lift from Batman coming back. 

Fitting, just like Hollywood Movie World has some good bits, but mostly it doesn't make sense.

Mixing it up with the locals, we had the delight of the train ride back at rush hour. Despite being featured multiple times on the "give your set up" signs, I stood for a good part of the trip.

At the stop before our destination the train was delayed again, this time for a passenger who had a medical emergency. I didn't see anything or anyone but we were there for a good while so we took a walk down South Bank for dinner. All along the road are restaurant after restaurant, all of them looked pretty good. We stopped into an Italian place that features Gnocchi and "enjoyed" the atmosphere of a sauna.

 Carbonara Gnocchi - pretty sure this is the pasta version of pineapple on a pizza, but like that I enjoyed this as well.

Louie had the Bolognese Gnocchi. Not sure if this is allowed either.

This is really an amazing space, loads of people out and about doing evening things. Not a hint of trouble and no police or security around either. Just so different from a lot of other places. Of course not all of Brisbane is like this, but I can't think of a similar place in New Zealand that doesn't have some sort of dickhead ruining it for others (wankers on their motorbikes and penis compensatory cars along Mission Bay comes to mind).

My favourite Brisbane buildings are all animated and shiny at night. We spent ages just sitting next to the river relaxing. I am definitely going to miss this when we leave.

More of the South Bank area, everyone out having a good time, running and cycling. There was a couple of miserable old farts who cycled through as if they owned the place and some fitness fanatics who were doing fitness things in still hot weather. Nutters.

And then we saw our first Furry group. This is the South Bank Furry Meet, who come here every Tuesday and walk along the waterfront. It must be so uncomfortable in all that getup, but there was a pretty big group of them. It was pretty damn organised, and they did a safety briefing before setting off.  

Just some sights along the way as we walked back to the Hotel.

Not sure what the plan is for tomorrow, we might go to the North part of Brisbane and see what it's like away from the main tourist areas.

9/02/2026 Catching up

 

Our hotel is somewhere in the bottom right, I think.

Another cracking day in Brisbane, temps getting up to 32c and two tourists on the loose with some sensible shoes and a tube of sunscreen.

This may look like a standard coffee but it was up there with the greatest coffees served to me, along with the one from the other day. Bloody hell, what counts for excitement these days is a bit desperate.

Breakfast - a Turkish version of eggs Benedict. I think they used Turkish bread, it was a bit of a stretch.

We realised that we haven't really had streaky bacon here, it's all been the big rasher cut. Now you too can keep ahead of the food trends. 

It looked like these buildings were ganging up on the church. This is the site of a photo of me back in the early 1980's standing in front of the fountain. I was hoping to recreate it but there were two issues. Firstly I couldn't find the original to match, and second they removed the fountain years ago.

The City Hall and Brisbane Museum, with a clock tower you can go up.

The museum was a bit shit, and the clock tower tour was booked out so it wasn't a great start to the day.

I think the view is pretty much the photo above, but from a higher angle so we weren't missing much.

The "museum" seemed to be mostly art galleries and collections of tat, some even vaguely related to Brisbane. Most not. There wasn't really any thing that told the story of the city, the history, how many Aboriginal people were displaced and alienated etc. Instead there were collections of glass pipes from a chemistry set, trading cards from around the world and pretty much any other collection a hoarder had "donated" to the museum to help keep their houses from overflowing.

There was a cool painting of the tiger shearing season.

I have no idea what the bottom creature is supposed to be, I wasn't aware there was a tusked stoat we were famous for. It does sum up the museum quite well, just chuck any old thing in there, nobody will care.

Sir Erstwhile Harrumph Brisbane, founder of the city and an avid fan of the Jamaican Red Stripe beer.

Yeah, this was traumatic. Another thing I remember from my childhood in a museum.

We were meeting up with the old A team from Watties, Brisbane chapter, so we had a tight deadline to meet. And of course there was always time for a detour through an interesting arcade. Melbourne isn't the only one with them.

Had an awesome time catching up with Lisa - it was just like old times. With less petfood, but pretty much the same amount of work was done.

Feeling energised and full of strength we set off up Mount Coot-tha. Thankfully we had good shoes, some water and a good hat and made great time on the journey to the corner up from the restaurant where we waited for an Uber.

The cafe at the top probably has one of the best views in the city, although it was a little hazy today.

Here it's either Ibis or Bush Turkeys crashing onto tables and picking their way through leftovers. These birds are pretty big and make a hell of racket as they bash their way around. 

Average tourist cafe lunch. Mystery meat and bread.

Brisbane City

Brisbane City with a bit more sky.

So we missed the bus down and were looking at an hour wait for the next one. There are a bunch of walkways all around the area, and we were kind of thinking about taking one down to the Botanic Gardens. After examining maps and signs we discovered the path was described as "Hard" which gave us a bit of a pause. Then we spotted the sign (not shown) that said the distance to the gardens was more than 2.5km through some pretty sterotypical Australian trees and grass, hiding all manner of snakes and spiders. Plus it was stinking hot.

Yeah, we Ubered.

Somehow I am blind to these Water Dragons. I have almost stood on so many this week, they're pretty big so I'm not sure what's going on. They are all over the gardens and the paths and seem to be quite used to people which is why they don't really move when I come lumbering towards them.

Thanks to the 1988 Exposition of Leisure there is quite a collection of bonsai trees, to our surprise. I honestly never knew there were so many different trees that are used for this! 

In a reversal of yesterday's events, we decided that this was a real alligator. It absolutely was not. Yep, we are useless and telling the difference between wildlife and building supplies, in this case - wood.

And these, I was excited, Louie horrified to see bats! They were holding guitars and it took us way to long to realise they weren't real.

The Dome of discomfort.

Just a bubble of the most humid air you can imagine. You step out into the high humidity of normal Brisbane and it's like a cool rush.

This is what I imagined Rio to be like.

We are loving it here, it feels so tropical and different, but with enough similarities to New Zealand it's not a complete culture shock. 

Dinner tonight was at a nearby Colombian restaurant. It felt like what I imagine Colombia feels like, thankfully without the insane insects and bugs.

Cheesy bread balls. They were very different, and could have used some sort of sauce but it made a great starter.

My lemonade and Louie's guava juice. These were fantastic, made from freshly squeezed juice. 

A mix of carbohydrates and protein. I did ask where his veges were and Louie vaguely waved in the direction of the rice. South American cuisine loves the brown.

Milanesa de frango, pretty much a top rated version of our chicken schnitzel, without the gravy. Chicken was so good, somehow they managed to avoid the woody chicken we seem to be plagued with.

Yes I ate all of the salad and left the rice.

5 minute walk back to the hotel, along the way there are some interesting sights. Absolutely no idea what this is, maybe some sort of abstract bug, it did remind me of Plankton off Spongebob.

Now I'm just a naive small town boy, but I always thought massages were on your back or feet. This sort of massage is usually called something else.