Slow Travels: Paddington

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.)

Slow Travels: Bardon

Bardon is a bosky suburb of dipping, shadow-tipped streets in Brisbane's inner-west.

The area lines Mt Coot-tha Forest. As you near the Forest, you join its bracelet of high-set wooden houses, parks and ovals, and old corner-shop fronts.

Then, at the end of Simpsons Road, you cross Sir Samuel Griffith Drive, which encircles the high point of the Forest. The two streets intersect at a point that's always busy with cyclists coming down the hill really fast. Still listening out for them, you join the path towards the Forest and the steep steps up to Simpsons Falls.

(Slow travels are travels by foot or bike.)