Yep, we actually stayed a month in one place! We keep hearing from our nomad friends that life is so much better if we take time to really learn a new city and live there. It is more relaxing, less stressful, and can be much more economical to have longer stays. But, when we are planning trips, we get excited by all the places to go. We want to see everything. So we thought we would give longer stays a try and we chose Brisbane as city that we could try living in another country. Results were mixed.
We don’t have many bad things to say about Brissy (pronounced Brizzy by locals) and it was a fine city to try out a longer stay. We had an apartment right in the middle of Southbank that was walkable to everything we needed, and also near easy bus, train and ferry connections. Transit is just 50 Aussie cents per ride and that included some long distance trains and the river ferries. We really enjoyed being able to jump on the river ferry to check out so many different neighborhoods while seeing some great river views. The Citycat ferries and the smaller Kittycats operate between 22 different ferry terminals. Between the buses, trains, and ferries, we feel like we really saw the whole city in a month.
Staying for a month allows us time to do some home cooking. We really miss cooking and get a bit tired of eating out. Yes, you can cook in a lot of Airbnb’s but we usually don’t because it doesn’t make sense to stock the spices, oil and condiments that allow us cook the way we want. This Brissy apartment had a kitchen but it wasn’t really fully stocked. We didn’t have things like saucepans, oven trays, baking pans, or even a cheese grater. We got good at shredding cheese with a vegetable peeler. We did end up buying the supplies and cooked breakfast every morning as well as most lunches and dinners. It can get expensive to eat out in Australia so this did help with our monthly budget. The apartment itself was not super cheap even though we had a monthly Airbnb discount. I am not sure I would recommend the Airbnb so I won’t link it. It had the lumpiest bed that we have ever slept on. It is easy to overlook things like that when you are only staying a few days. It was tough to be stuck with an uncomfortable bed for a whole month. The best part was the location. We were within easy walking distance of the downtown park of SouthBank which had a free huge swimming pool next to the river. Amazing to see so many people on a pool beach right in the middle of city.
Meg did a lot of working out during our month in Brissy to continue her rehab after the broken patella in New Zealand. She went to physical therapy twice a week and worked out every day to strength her leg muscles. She is now proud to be off all crutches and leg braces!!! I spent a lot of time exploring all the parks in the city and trying to expand my ever growing bird life list. Australia has so many interesting birds and different bird habitats that I was not as bored as I thought I would be. Many of the birds are very large and colorful that it is still shocking to see them around here as “regular” birds. The Australian Ibis has turned in to a nuisance “bin chicken” in every Australian city we have been in. The beautiful Rainbow Lorikeets are everywhere and quickly turned from a “Wow!” bird to a common neighborhood sighting. While not a bird, we were also still shocked to see the flying fox (large bats) in every city we have been in Australia. The bats are so big that they look a bit spooky.
We have now visited many Australian cities on our trip this year. Many people questioned (including us) why we chose Brisbane to be our city with a long stay. We aren’t really sure why it turned out that way, but we have no regrets. Brisbane is a beautiful city and has just as much to do as Sydney, Melbourne and Adelaide. We like all the cities, but now we are big Brissy fans. The river with the ferries, the easy downtown, the parks ,and the nearby beaches make it a very attractive city. The Olympics will be here in 2032 and it is just going to be an amazing time and we hope to find a way back here to see that.
So, our long stay was a trial to see how we liked slowing down a bit. How did we like it???? It was nice to be able to wake up some days and not do anything. It gave us a bit of rest from the stresses of travel. But…. we actually like doing things most days. We weren’t bored in Brisbane, but I was certainly ready to leave after a couple of weeks. We did take a weekend trip that broke up the long stay a bit but I just think we prefer to keep moving every 7 to 10 days. That doesn’t mean we won’t do a month stay again. We do like our long stays in Bucerias, Mexico and we have another month stay planned there in December. But, we probably won’t change our traveling style to ALL long stays. And I have stopped feeling guilty about our inability to embrace full slow travel. We are going to do what we wanted as I wrote about last week. A month was a bit long for me, but it wasn’t the fault of Brisbane. It is just my itchiness to keep seeing new things.
Our next stop is in Northern Queensland. We will be staying in 3 different small towns North of Cairns to get a good mix of the tropical rainforest and the Great Barrier Reef.