Christmas in Brisbane, Australia

Date: December 12, 2018 – December 25, 2018
Location: Brisbane, Australia

From the Big Island of Hawaii we flew to Honolulu, Hawaii on the island of Oahu to spend the night in a hotel. The next morning on December 12, 2018, we got to the Honolulu airport at 6:30 am for our flight to Australia.

There were not many people at the airport when we first arrived.

On our flight from Honolulu to Melbourne, Australia we saw some small islands. I think this may be some of the Lau Islands that are part of Fiji.

At the Melbourne airport there were some Christmas decorations.

We arrived in Brisbane, Australia at 11:30 pm local time on December 14, 2018 after leaving Honolulu, Hawaii at 10:00 am local time (our flight was delayed leaving) on December 12, 2018. We’d been up since roughly 5:30 am Hawaii time, which is 1:30 am Australian time (next day) – up for nearly 22 hours – so we were exhausted.

In Brisbane we saw hotels had Christmas trees up.

Around the city there were also many Christmas decorations.

Santa’s Stable

Large ornaments along Queen Street Mall, a pedestrian only street.

This is Brisbane’s 22 meter (~72 feet) high Christmas tree in King George Square.

This was the South Bank.

There were red and green lights around the city in a few place. This is the former Treasury Building that is now Treasury Casino and Hotel Brisbane.

Victoria Bridge

Story Bridge

The Enchanted Garden

Brisbane also has many free activities to celebrate Christmas during the month. On December 7th – 14th in Roma Street Parkland there was The Enchanted Garden.

The park and gardens were decorated with lights. When we first arrived there were many people.

Christmas Parade

On December 14th  – 23rd each night there was a Christmas Parade.

There were many people in the parade dressed up.

The parade ends with Santa.

City Hall Lights

On December 7th – 24th there was a 10-minute light show that played on City Hall every 15 minutes from 7:30 pm – midnight.

In the show a girl wants to visit Santa at his house with the snow.

She rides a kangaroo to travel there and stops in other parts of the world along the way.

When she gets to the North Pole she meets Rudolph. (I’m not sure why he is pink.)

The girl meets Santa and visits his workshop.

The workshop is fun but she misses the warm Christmas.

St Stephen’s Cathedral also had a light show.

Fireworks Spectacular

On December 20th – 23rd there were fireworks. We watched them from Clem Jones Promenade on the South Bank. The show started with 3 people in LED suits with water jet packs and fireworks shooting out of their backs.

Sparklers came from their backpacks.

The fireworks were set to Christmas music and lasted for 15 minutes.

Brisbane also had concerts, a Christmas market and a Christmas Cinema playing a Christmas movie outside for free each night.