Daily Detours for the Week of November 13
Featuring red velvet waffles for dinner.
Daily Detours for the Week of November 13
in partnership with
Featuring red velvet waffles for dinner.
When your nine-to-five plays out like a well-oiled machine, it can sometimes feel like each week is a little same-same. But Brisbane is brimming with a fine bounty of things to experience and explore each and every day. So aside from casual laziness and a little lack of inspiration, there's really nothing stopping you from squeezing some adventure and spontaneity into your schedule.
We've teamed up with Mazda3 to help you celebrate the little things that bring a sense of adventure to life. Shake things up, as we give you seven different detours to take each week in Brisbane. From Monday to Sunday, enrich your everyday with one completely achievable activity that inspires you to take the scenic route as you go about your daily routine.
This week, eat red velvet waffles for dinner, cycle through the City Botanic Gardens and take a road trip to eat Brisbane's best pies by the water. Plus, we've got your future detours sorted for the next few weeks here.
All require no more effort than a tiny break from the norm — what's your excuse for not trying them all?
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You can discover a lot about a city by cycling through it, which is why many places have public bike schemes — Brisbane included. And even if you’re a local rather than a tourist, you’ll see some sights you’d normally ignore if you hop on a bright yellow CityCycle, put pedal to the pavement, and go for a leisurely ride from Davies Park to the City Botanic Gardens. The river, West End’s leafy confines, South Bank and the Goodwill Bridge line the 4.9-kilometre path — they’re some of the most scenic spots in the inner city. Plus, as well as proving a fun way to get active, it’s also affordable, with bike rental free for the first 30 minutes, $2 for the next 30 minutes and $5 per each 30-minute block afterwards.
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Just a 30-minute drive out of Brisbane’s CBD, Wynnum is well worth a day trip — for a splash and for some fish and chips. As far as the former is concerned, the shorefront pool fills with sea water, making it the perfect spot to dip your toes. And when it comes to the latter, you could easily enjoy a fish ‘n’ chip crawl of the area’s abundance of greasy spoons. Pick from Cooper’s, Baywatch Café, Pelican’s Nest and Barramundi Boys, or order something from each place you pass as you walk along the Esplanade.
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You can tell a lot about a person’s culinary choices by their favourite TV shows. For example, if you’re a Parks and Recreation and Stranger Things fan, then we’re guessing that you’re also a lover of waffles. Leslie Knope and Eleven haven’t tucked into red, bubble-shaped batter concoctions on-screen — but at Brooklyn Depot, you can. Made from red velvet batter, they come with chicken, so they’re suitable for dinner too. Pair them with some lobster mac and cheese or cheeseburger empanadas from the burger chain’s latest menu, and then go for a mosey around South Bank afterwards to walk it off.
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Want to live out your Mario Kart fantasies? Slideways has you covered. Don some overalls and a red cap, your prettiest princess dress or toadstool hat because motoring fun is on the agenda in the multi-coloured Eagle Farm space — a 425-metre, two-level indoor track, complete with a bridge, tunnel and loop of the carpark. It’s the best kind of car-related activity the area has to offer, because getting stuck in traffic on Kingsford Smith Drive doesn’t count. Afterwards, keep the revving revelry going by hopping in one of the site’s new full-motion race car simulators.
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If there’s anything freakier than trying to make your way across the Toowong Roundabout in peak hour, it’s the heritage-listed necropolis next door. Ladies and gents, guys and ghouls — it’s ghost tour time. Toowong Cemetery is the largest cemetery in Queensland and the burial place of 120,000 people. Give yourself a fright and learn some history at the same time as you tour the massive graveyard. On the Toowong Cemetery Ghost Tour you’ll hear 13 tales of real haunted graves – think dead governors, murderers and black widows.
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You step inside a room, painted white from floor to ceiling. All surfaces, fixtures, furniture and objects are white, and not just the usual things, either. The fireplace decked with stockings, the kitchen filled with utensils: they’re white too. It’s up to you and your fellow visitors to add spots of colour in sticker form. The interactive project stems from Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama’s childhood perception, seeing the world through a screen of tiny dots. In her work that followed, she covered everything with dots in a process she calls “obliteration”. That’s what Kusama asks everyone to do here: obliterate the installation’s pristine state. And yes, running around sticking spots on everything is as fun and therapeutic as it sounds.
Developed for the Queensland Art Gallery in 2002, The Obliteration Room has toured the world, and now returns to Brisbane for the first time since 2014–15. It may be a feature of GOMA’s Children’s Centre, but witnessing and participating in the transformative process is a delight for big kids as well. You’ll want to go back again and again during the just over four-month run, but don’t forget to check out the rest of the Yayoi Kusama: Life is the Heart of a Rainbow from November.
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You can never be bored on Boundary Street. Pick any three spots, make an agenda and you’ve got a fun morning out — including browsing for secondhand clothes, settling in for breakfast at an iconic eatery and boosting your reading list. SWOP Clothing Exchange has the first part taken care of, but if you’re heading by on a day other than Friday, don’t forget to make an appointment. Then grab brekkie at West End fave Gunshop Cafe before spending a healthy amount of time rifling through the shelves — and asking the staff for recommendations — at Avid Reader.
Personalise your next adventure via The Playmaker, driven by Mazda3.
