My name is Rose Lane and I am a freelance writer living in Brisbane for the past 40 years.
Brisbane used to be known as a “big country town”; it was a daggy place, and, until 1985, when the whistle was finally blown on its corrupt police force, a police state, where people were stopped and searched, and their homes raided, and where peaceful protest was a crime punishable by gaol.
But since shaking off its dark history and welcoming the world for Expo ’88, Brisbane has grown into a city with great restaurants and cafes, beautiful parklands, and a vibrant cultural scene.
Come with me and I’ll show you.
This blog is being created in Meanjin/Brisbane, home to the Jagera and Turrbul people. This land was never ceded.
What Brisbane People Say About Brisbane
Storms came on Fridays, lightning-jutting beasts that pelted the city with an hour of tropical rain, washing it clean and giving to the vegetation an intensity of colour that was almost psychedelic.
Robert Forster
With its wooden houses perched on stilts, its swampy beaches, its fluorescent foliage, its mangrove decay, its specific heat, Brisbane to the foreigner can seem exotic. A tropical place for breezy tropical people. A town where people come in battered trucks from the dusty plains of the outback.
Nick Earls
I keep coming back to the light of Brisbane… If you live away from it, then step back into it, it is the first thing that tells you you’re home.
Matthew Condon
Beautiful Brisbane 