The Museum of Brisbane...

Recently DH and I spent an hour or so having a browse through the exhibitions in the Museum of Brisbane which is housed in the City Hall.
One exhibition focussed on the Brisbane River and it's part in the development of Brisbane as a capital city. There were paintings of the river in the early days of white settlement and lots of photos taken through the years. In early photos, wharves lined the various reaches of the river near the city and sailing vessels and steamships plied the river. Interestingly, there was a large map of the river showing the names of the 'reaches' in the river...I only knew the name of a few, but there are lots!
DH took this photo (of a photo) of an early vehicular ferry...this was the Eagle St ferry which crossed the river to Kangaroo Point; it's a bit different these days! lol

There have been a number of bridges built over the river and it was interesting to see photos of these bridges at various times in their history. There was even a model of the quite iconic Story Bridge.

The main exhibition that we went to see was the one which featured Expo 88...mainly the night time parades...but also a few other bits and pieces, such as uniforms and mascots...

Crazy costumes featured a lot in the parades at Expo

Costumes and lots of colour and movement...

As I said...crazy and zany things...

During the night time parades there were a lot of these wheeled vehicles, which were very flamboyant; in this exhibition we saw blueprints by the designers. maybe the actual vehicles haven't survived.

Sketches of some of the costumes...

The mascot for Expo 88; a large furry platypus with a slouch hat!

 There were lots of bands at Expo...this is the uniform of one such band...

Now because I've been sorting out the hundreds of photos that belong to our family, I was able to 'put my hands on' the photos that were taken on family outings to Expo 88. So this is my 'blast from the past, 1988'...

There's that band uniform from the previous photo, again...

Ha ha! I remembered how my children loved this instrument!

And here's another band that we saw...

As well as bands, there were lots of buskers at Expo...

And dancers from other countries...

There were amazing acrobats and trapeze artists too...

I didn't seem to have any photos of the Night Parade but here is a photo of entertainment on the River stage...

And the Laser Light Show and fireworks display each night were very popular...

The next photo is rather blurry but it shows the monorail that went around the site...

The architecture was rather adventurous...and I don't seem to have any photos of the pavilions which is a shame as they were fascinating in the main.

Lots of sculpture pieces were dotted throughout the site...

This photo shows me with my 2 daughters (7 and 4 at that time) having a rest after a long day walking around Expo. (the lady in the white shirt wasn't with us) 

 We had season tickets so we went many times during the 6 months. The photo below shows my 2 girls on a visit in Spring as they are wearing cotton dresses.

These sculptures were named 'Human Factor' and they were dotted throughout the site. A number were purchased by the City Council and are consequently still on display in the city.

It's hard to believe that it is 25 years since Brisbane hosted the World Fair also known as Expo 88.