On the Brisbane river

Note the beverage in my hand.

The riverboat captain took this picture.  It's a little hard to tell that I am actually piloting the boat on the Brisbane river.  Much to my surprise, when I took him up on the offer to get a picture behind the wheel, he was quite content to allow me to pilot the boat while he looked on.  We had a rather long talk about why I was in Brisbane while I was behind the wheel for almost an hour.

The river is not straight, there are several rather severe bends, along with a number of bridges with abutments in the water along the way.  I was actually piloting the boat, he only took the wheel near the end of the trip to get it positioned for a good photo of downtown Brisbane as we came around the last bend of the trip.  This maneuver involved getting quite close to the bank on one side.

Of course, the boat is only going about about 10 knots/hr and he could jump in in plenty of time to rescue it from something I did wrong.  It was a gorgeous day on the river, just a bit breezy, and driving a riverboat is fairly straightforward.  However, this was definitely one of the highlights of my visit.  Both the conversation I had with the captain and the experience of driving the boat were awesome.

I have been wanting to pilot a riverboat since I was a child.  I was a big fan of Mark Twain in my youth.  He worked as a riverboat captain.  He loved the work.  Samuel Langhorn Clemons pen name Mark Twain came from riverboat terminology.  "Mark Twain" declared by a leaderman (crew on the bow of the boat measuring the depth of the river) means the river is deep enough for the steamboats he piloted to safely pass.

This vessel, the Miramar II, was launched in 2009 after the Miramar I was retired after 75 years of service.  It's a catamaran about 60 feet long with twin engines.  The captain told me that the trick to the job was dealing with the weather's effect on the river.  The river changes direction four times daily, it is very sensitive to lunar tides and wind, so the nuances of piltong the river change daily.

Our conversation was about why I was in Brisbane.  Once he heard I was considering permanent immigration (and why) he got quite interested in discussing US politics.  Like most Australians he was very well informed about the problems we have in the US.  He seemed to intuitively understand my concerns and reasoning.

He has the same questions all US citizens of good conscience have about income inequality, gun violence, the venality and ill-will expressed by Trump, and the cowardice of the Republican enablers in Congress.  Better informed about US politics than many people I know in the US, our conversation sparkled with insight and common cause.

He's a young man, blonde and quite handsome, who has been piloting this boat for more than ten years.  He must have started just out of high school.  He recently returned to work after being out because of a bicycling accident, colliding with a car that turned right in front of him.  He commutes to work on a bicycle.  Australia drives on the other side of the road, so this is like someone turning left in front of you in the US.

Like everyone I spoke with who took me seriously about possibly moving to Brisbane, he warned me about Brisbane weather.  It's hot and humid much of the year.  This is exactly what I would say to someone thinking of relocating to Austin, Texas.  I am from Austin.  There's little to complain about Austin outside of the weather.  it seems to be the same for Brisbane. 

Brisbane's unofficial state bird is the construction crane,  There's quite a lot of building going on here and they anticipate the greater metropolitan area will approach a population of three million by 2020.  Brisbane is Australia's third largest city, home to the University of Queensland as well.  There seem to be quite a lot of suburbs.  Locals speak highly of the ability to run down to Gold Coast, a coastal resort area south of the City, for an easy escape from the urban life.  I was not able to fit such a jaunt into my trip.

The river is brown not because of pollution but because of turbidity in the waters.  Rapid changes in river conditions stir up the sand on the river bottom regularly.  The city council shut down a cement plant on the river bank because it was determined that the dredging they were doing for raw materials was making the problem worse.  I find it hard to see such a thing happening in the US.  There would be too many cries of job-killers and namby-pamby environmental extremism.

The river is still brown, but the cement plant is still closed.  It's aging shell is now one of the many landmarks on the trip up river to the Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary.  The trip up-river is accompanied by a recorded commentary about the sights along the way that is quite funny.

"If you see someone fall overboard, please alert the crew.  We will toss one of our life preserver rings to them.  Then we will have to go back and pick them up, because those rings are quite expensive."

The commentary was interesting and enjoyable enough to justify the trip alone.  Of course, there's quite a lot of fancy historic homes on the river, so the journey is quite the tour of Australian architecture as well.  Brisbane has had three major floods, two recently, most recently in 2011.  This has changed the conditions along the banks each time.  One can't speak to a local about the river for long without a sentence that begins "Since the last flood...."

If I had to single out a single thing that I did which I would definitely repeat upon my return, it would be spending time on the river.  One doesn't have to take this cruise in order to do this, there's quite an extensive ferry service as public transit.  Many things charmed me about Brisbane, but this was definitely one of the most charming.