Brisbane vs. Gold Coast
 

We are traveling to AU from 3/25/05-4/20. Pleased with our travel plans except for one area. Arriving in Brisbane 4/13 with reservations for 4 nights. Feel that may be too lengthy for the city. Should we spend 2 nights there and head to the Gold coast for 2 nights before our flight to Sydney early on the 17th? Would time allow and should we than rent a car? Any suggestions, thanks. jb

Hi jbstring. That's a tough one since I don't really have an idea of what sort of person you are and what you hope to get out of your stay.

How about I list a bunch of things to do in both cities and let you decide...

Brisbane...
-There are no surf beaches in brisbane. The surf is blocked by moreton island (a beautiful world heritage listed sand island) 45 mins by boat. You can do day trips to the island on the tangalooma flier or you can stay overnight at the tangalooma wild dolphin resort (you can feed the wild dolphins too)
-South Bank Parklands is a great spot. It contains:
Qld Museum
Qld Art Gallery
Maratime Museum
Imax Theatre
Normal Cinema
Kodak beach (a man made beach/lagoon supervised by lifeguards)
Countless cafés and restaurants

-Something else unique to Brisbane are its gold class cinemas. Imagine sitting in a reclining chair while waiting staff bring you food and beverages (including alcoholic) as you relax and watch the movie on the big screen!
-Shopping is great in the queen st mall
-botanical gardens
-abseiling at kangaroo point
-Take a trip half an hour north to redcliffe and visit sutton's beach. A calm beach equiped with free electric barbeques (south bank also has these)
-The usual assortment of night clubs and pubs
-A fairly large casino
-Good public transport

The Gold Coast...
-Brilliant surf beaches all patrolled
-Another fairly large casino
-Theme parks
-Dreamworld (the largest theme park in Australia containing some of the best rides in the world)
-Seaworld
-Warner brothers movie world
-Great shopping
-There are thousands of other attractions that I can't list here. GC is certainly more equiped for tourists. It wouldn't exist without them.
-GC does not have good public transport

The gold coast is linked to brisbane with an excellent new highway. It would take you approximately 45-60 mins (depending on local traffic in both cities) to get to surfers paradise from brisbane city centre.

If you intend to visit the theme parks I suggest hiring a car since they're all situated in fairly remote locations off the highway. However, if this is your plan, may I suggest staying at the seaworld Nara resort? They have package deals offering multi-day access to all 3 parks and offer shuttle buses. Nara resort is within walking distance of surfers paradise.

If you are a steve Irwin fan, you can do day trips to his Australia Zoo from Brisbane. Just another thought
enjoy

>If you are a steve Irwin fan, you can do day trips to his Australia Zoo from Brisbane. Just another thought
enjoy

yep. That's about as far away from Brisbane as the GC is but in the opposite direction. You can get the train but it would be more convenient to drive. It's easy enough to find.

If you're into rock climbing you could visit the glasshouse mountains. In a similar area. Mt tibrogahgan is a nice climb 900ft and no equipment necessary.

Closer to brisbane is Alma Park zoo but that's nowhere near as cool as Aus Zoo. Steve Irwin pops in every now and again. He was there during my last visit.

The truth is, if you want to do some day trips, Brisbane is a more central location.

From Brisbane you have easy access to the sunshine coast, gold coast, moreton and stradbroke islands.

If that's not your plan then maybe the gold coast is better for you.

Perhaps you can provide us with a better idea of what you'd like to get up to?

To Brisbanite-
I am going to take your advice and rent a car and stay in Brisbane while having the freedom of traveling up the coast. We have reservations at Annies
Shandon Inn, any comments?

>Shandon Inn, any comments?

Sorry jb I haven't heard of that one so I can't comment on the accomodation. However, a quick web search reveals the address which I can comment on...

405 Upper Edward Street
Brisbane 4000

You can't get any more central that that. You're right in the middle of town. You may have problems with parking though. The web site states they have limited parking, perhaps you should give them a call to ensure you have a space allocated to you.

http://babs.com.au/annies/

I just want to make a correction to one of my statements. Moreton island is not world heritage listed. It is however protected and listed as a national park.

I think you will regret staying in Brisbane for 4 days. The things that you really would want to see are either on the Sunshine Coast or around the Gold Coast and just one area i.e. Lamington National Park or Binna Burra etc is a full day trip and a drive of 2 hours to get there and 2 back. So travelling to and from would be a pain in the backside.
Brisbane is a nice enough city but has nothing much for tourists that you cannot see better and more of somewhere else. Certainly not the place that I would suggest anyone goes to for an International destination. It is ok to suggest renting a car in Brisbane but remember you will be driving on the wrong side of the road in traffic that is unfamiliar to destinations that are also unfamiliar.
For instance there are Gold style Cinemas everywhere now and it was a small Village Cinema that was the first to introduce food and drink, tables etc which opened years ago at Sanctuary Cove on the Gold Coast that was the first available one - now they are everywhere.
As for renting a car if you want to go to theme parks - NO YOU DO NOT need to do that. If you are staying in Brisbane then all you need to do is get to the railway station and take a

continued: regular (time wise) train and get off at one of the suggested stations i.e. Coomera for Dreamworld and there will be a bus to take you to the theme park there. If you go into the city of the Gold Coast there will be a free bus to all of the theme parks.
Same goes for Australia zoo - get a train to Beerwah and a taxi to the zoo from there. Much more pleasant than trying to get into and out of the cities. As for driving on the
Gold Coast - I think the drivers there are the worst in the world and I hate driving there.
Bye the way they are eels that you would see in the Lamington National Park - the Queensland lung fish is naturally found in the Bundaberg/Maryborough areas in rivers where they can get away from fast flowing water - you rarely get to see one as they seem to live near the bottom around reeds and things.......... cut and pasted the following:
The Queensland Lungfish is normally found in still or slow flowing pools in river systems of south-eastern Queensland. It occurs naturally in the Burnett and Mary River systems although has been introduced into other rivers and reservoirs in south-eastern Queensland and north-eastern New South Wales.
I was just trying to work out what it was the Beemers said which was all wrong, according to Brisbanite.
I have always suggested that staying in a nice place on the Gold Coast or near and travelling to the various beauty spots is much better than paying the expensive ( relatively) accommodation with meals included at Lamington National Park as its a pain to get from elsewhere from there. Do a Google search for Gold Coast and check out Hinterland. Same for Sunshine Coast. That way you can see whats on offer and decide what you want yourself.

I'm now very apprehensive in spending our time in Brisbane. We are 55+, very active and want to see and do all we can in the short time we have in AU. in Brisbane.(We will be coming from Pt.Douglas and will have spend some time in Sydney and Melbourne.) We arrive in Brisbane at 9:25AM on Wed and leave early morning on Sat. I think we may be better off renting a car at the Brisbane airport and traveling one day to the Sunshine Coast and one day to the Gold Coast, just taking in the sights. The day we are in Brisbane, we can take a catamaran to Moreton Island. Like you mentioned, we will base ourselves out of Brisbane and go from there. I see no other way around other than renting a car. Any further comments/ suggestions? jb

When we stayed in Brisbane a few years ago for the Rotary International Convention, we had no problems driving around. The gold coast is beautiful and has a completely different feel to it! The drive was easy and actually relaxing. Might be fun to spend a night or two there... Surfer's Paradise looked like Maui to me, but you'll be fine. Brisbane is a great central location, as others have said, and you will not be sorry you used it as a base.

Hi Again,

With regards to driving. You will be on the left and you'll have to get used to the odd round about. However, I can't think of an easier capital city to drive in. Brisbane has no traffic problems. Most locals think the terms 'traffic jam' and 'traffic accident' are interchangible because there is no such thing as a traffic jam without a traffic accident in Brisbane.

As somebody who has driven in a number of european cities where i've had to get used to driving on the right hand side, I don't think you'll find it too much of a bother. The roads are very good especially between Brisbane and the GC. If you've driven in any major city you'll find Brisbane very easy.

You won't regret visiting moreton island, it is a beautiful island. At the wild dolphin resort, they allow day trip visitors to feed the dolphins. You'll just have to book through the resort.

http://www.tangalooma.com/tangalooma/start.asp

This web site has pictures of what you can expect.

Yes the drive to lamington natioal park is pretty close to 2 hours. May I suggest you spend a night at O'Reillys if you want to see the rainforest. However, I thought you might be 'all rain forest out' after your trip to cairns. If you do stay at oreilly's (www.oreillys.com.au) You could spend a day on the gold coast on your way back to brisbane.

Personally, I love driving and I think its the best way to see the any country. If you're like me you'll enjoy every bit of your drives throughout south east queensland.

>Bye the way they are eels that you would see in the Lamington National Park - the Queensland lung fish is naturally found in the Bundaberg/Maryborough areas in rivers where they can get away from fast flowing water

This discussion doesn't belong in this thread. I have posted a response in the correct thread. But I will say that the reason it was appropriate to suggest an expensive location in the other thread was because the foderite specifically requested luxurious 5 star accomodation and to view australian animals. Perhaps you should read a thread before commenting and keep your comments to the correct thread.

Thank you for clearing the driving situation up for me. Yes, we have driven in major foriegn cities in the past so after reading the recent postings, I can now have a better sleep and base ourselves out of Brisbane with long day trips in the car just enjoying the different views. Moreton Island is also in the cards. JB

Glad we could be of assistance jb. I've just stumbled on this site which may be of use to you...

http://www.brisbane-australia.com

It includes information of scenic drives, things to do, care hire, accomodation in south east queensland. Many of the scenic drives are quite close to the city.

There is also a myriad of pictures.

scenic drives - Brisbane
http://www.brisbane-australia.com/103365.php

jb,

Something that hasn't been mentioned so far is Mt Cootha. It has a beautifull view of the city and the summit restaurant at the top is very nice. Just ask for directions to the mt cootha summit.

Cheers,

AZG

To AZG-
Thank you for your input, sounds lovely. JB

Brisbanite-Your website referral gave me a wealth of info. It appears we do not need a car. We can take day tours and see everything on our list+. Do you think reservations from the USA is necessary? Have you heard of Day Tour Company leaving from the transit center? TX, JB

Sorry jb but I can't advise on the tour buses other than to say I know there is a shuttle to the tangalooma flier (which goes to moreton island).

I'd say, when in doubt book in advance. Perhaps another foderite has had more experience dealing with tour buses in brisbane?