Brisbane..Free City Hopper Ferry ..every half hour…visit the Maritime Museum, Eagle Street and Southbank

CityHopper The CityHopper service started on 1 July 2012. The CityHopper service allows you to rediscover Brisbane for free with ferries running every 30 minutes between 6am and midnight, seven days a week. The CityHopper travels along the Brisbane River, stopping at North Quay, South Bank 3, Maritime Museum, Thornton Street, Eagle Street Pier, Holman […]

Brisbane..Free City Hopper Ferry ..every half hour…visit the Maritime Museum, Eagle Street and Southbank

The Brisbane River is the longest river in South-East Queensland, Australia, and flows through the city of Brisbane, before emptying into Moreton Bay on the Coral Sea. John Oxley, the first European to explore the river, named it after the Governor of New South Wales, Sir Thomas Brisbane in 1823.

The Turrbal Nation of Aboriginal people have inhabited the shores of the Brisbane River for up to 40,000 years. The Turrbal were friendly and accommodating people who were great fishermen, using the river as a resource for food which included many varieties of fish, shellfish, crabs and shrimps. It was also an important location for spiritual and recreational purposes, as the people had gatherings at the best fishing locations.

On March 21st 1823 ticket of leave convicts, Thomas Pamphlett, John Finnegan, Richard Parsons and John Thompson set sail south of Sydney for Illawarra on a timber finding expedition. However, the convicts were struck by a storm and were blown far north. They went 21 days without water resulting in the death of Thompson before landing on Moreton Island on April 16th of that same year. The three remaining convict’s sense of direction had been turned around by the storm and they believed that they were positioned south of Jervis Bay. They began to make the trek north back to Sydney when they discovered the mouth of the Brisbane River. The three survivors walked along by the river for a month before they stole an Aboriginal canoe at the Oxley Creek junction and made their first crossing of the river.

The Surveyor General of New South Wales, John Oxley, was under orders from the New South Wales Governor, Sir Thomas Brisbane, was sent to Moreton Bay on a mission to find a new convict settlement. It was on December 2nd 1823 that the convict, Finnegan, unwillingly guided Oxley through the mouth of the river and upstream. Oxley noticed the plentiful fish and flourishing pine trees on the river shore and was also convinced by the red cliffs north of the river (Redcliffe) of its attractiveness as a penal settlement. It was then that he named the river after Sir Brisbane, the Governor of NSW.

 By 1842 England had stopped sending convicts to Australia and the district was opened to free settlers. From then on the population around the Brisbane River flourished and by 1859 when Brisbane was decreed the capital of the colony of Queensland, the population had risen to around 6,000.

Since then the Brisbane River has continued to change and evolve with the times and it is now used as one of Brisbane’s major public transport systems.

There are picnic spots aplenty along the Brisbane River’s banks, and most public parks have dedicated barbecue areas that are free to use for the first to claim them. Our favourite spots are in Brisbane City Botanic Gardens, anywhere at New Farm Park, at the top of the Kangaroo Point cliffs, Captain Burke Park, Orleigh Park at West End, and anywhere at South Bank Parklands.

Brisbane’s riverside bars make for the perfect location for an afternoon beverage. Our favourites are Bar Pacino, Riverland Bar, Fridays, Blackbird and River bar at Eagle Street and Mr Percival’s and Felons at Howard Smith Wharves.