Paddington, just north of the city, is the first Brisbane suburb I really fell in love with.
It's very hilly, sitting across a ridge that is like a horse's back arching upwards to where Paddington and Bardon join. On either side of the ridge are fast-dipping roads scooped out of the hillside and criss-crossed with lines of uneven-heighted rooftops, made mostly of corrugated iron.
Actually, it feels like a place of rooftops: the houses are like jewellery, a surface of cut metal, but as you walk along the streets you're reminded, too, of the modest origins of the area, for the ornamental, decorative appearance of Paddington is really down to the old workers' cottages of its first development being so small and pressed tightly together.
(Slow travel is travel by foot or bike.)
