Background
Arguably, Brisbane doesn't have 'world-class' urbex. There are no tunnels under a huge waterfall, there's not a warren of metro tunnels, or kilometers of catacombs. Heck, there's not even an abandoned asylum to speak of. With that said though, the exploratory treats offered by such a relatively small city speak for themselves. You can entertain yourself for years, and still not see it all - I certaintly didn't. I won't try to harp on the subject, but simply touch on a few of my favourite exploration destinations in Brisbane.

The Story Bridge
Probably the most impressive location, in terms of scale of effort required, reward, and sheer amount of activites. First useless fact: The road across the bridge is actually a highway, the Bradfield Highway - distinct in its own right - and whilst shortest in Australia, it also shares its name with the highway across the Sydney Harbour Bridge.

Construction started for the Story bridge to alleviate the crush of the depression in Brisbane - the government endorsed the project heavily. Technically speaking, it is a Caisson-Cantilever bridge. Its trademark 'M' shape is not entirely original - the design is a direct descendant of the Jacques-Cartier bridge in Canada. The bridge itself spans the rocky outcrop of Fortitude Valley, has its first pylon on land, before arching across the river, its second pylon resting on the soft soil of the opposing bank of Kangaroo Point. Such a discrepancy in foundation material called for implementation of 'caissons' - a technique already proven suitable for Brisbane in the construction of the William Jolly Bridge.

Caissons are incredibly simple in principle. Imagine an inverted cup sitting on a bowl of your grandma's most viscous porridge. Under its own weight, the cup will start to sink into the porridge. If you threw some lego men inside, and made them dig and duly pump out the porridge out the top of the cup, and reduced the pressure inside the cup somewhat, in no time at all, the cup would be firmly settled on the bottom of the bowl, and only some of your lego men would have the bends. Swap porridge for Brisbane River mud, and a glass with the first Kangroo Point pillar of the bridge, and you've got the construction technique down pat.

The Story Bridge offers an intrepid explorer many avenues of exploration - you can rest on top of a pillar, watch the river roll past over a glass of your favourite beverage, or make the ascent to the top. 'In the old days', the trek to the top was more involved than now - since the installation of the pesky and overpriced 'Bridge Climb', one can simply walk up the end of the bridge. In past times, you'd ninja your way up pylons, and negotiate with the very angry crow that used live at the top.

In theory - one could enter the caisson pylon, as it is hollow, and make the venture 25m below the bridge, underground and underwater. However, close inspection of the pylon revealed nothing more than concrete and dead pigeons where one would normally gain access. Perhaps with a plasma cutter.

View from the top, while the bridge was lit pink

Batcave - Somewhere under Brisbane
Always a crowd-pleaser, 'Batcave' is a popular drain for a lazy Sunday afternoon. Running just a few kilometers, its ample and frequent form changes, including the final stretch of rock-blasted goodness and bat community always make for interesting adventures. Nothing beats exiting a drain among picnic-ers and yuppies, sopping wet, covered in mud and bat-dung, surrounded by a flock of bats. Alternative exits include popping up between train lines (!), or a dank-smelling upstream pipe.

I include, mainly for completeness, a photo of the rather popular junction in Batcave. Those in the know will know that this is the urbexer's photography analogue of the Tour Eiffel to a shutter happy american in paris.

Like always, dsankt has a fantastic shot of this junction.

The Canberra Bombers
While not so much a location as passing distraction, and somewhat different photo material, these two original Canberra Bombers now live in a field, and are home to many, many pigeons. The night skies are normally clear and distant from light pollution, and scrambling into guano-filled cockpits and pulling the eject lever like an idiot always makes for fun.

One of the lonely Canberra Bombers

David Jones - the Queen Street Mall, Brisbane.
There were only a handful of locations in Brisbane that I really wanted to do. The McDonald and East building, Mt Crosby's Secret, and the David Jones building.
Before a few years ago, you could look up to the roof of the old David Jones building, to see an old watertower with a rickety ladder leaning against it - a relic of past times, now dwarfed and lost in a sea of highrise. It was only until the redevelopment of David Jones that the rooftop was accessible - as with most things, patience is often the key to exploration. While workers busied themselves with gutting the building, you could slip down a side alley, or even better, detour through a substation and pop into the normally hidden stairwell. Behind a tangle of padlocks, alarms and paraphenalia, you'd eventually come up to the roof itself. It was most definitely a grand nook - city views, a beautiful redbrick water tower, and about 20 corporate wireless networks to browse. I shot some of my favourite photos up on top of DJ's.

Terminal Dogma
Another relic of Brisbane's past, this underground reservoir was Brisbane's first - and a vital link to a clean, fresh water source for Brisbane. Nestled in the heart of the city, with only emos and goths as friends, and gaurded by the fact that it's an agressive gay-pickup / rape spot, it's somewhat surprising that there's something crafted with intricate detail just below the surface: Red Brick arches give one a feeling they've descended into a cathedral, or underground vault of some description. At last inspection, and an interesting twist of fate for this long-abandoned structure, it was re-sealed to be watertight, and was in the process of being integrated back into the water-system of Brisbane, in an attempt to curb off the effects of the drought.

The Sandkings
If you ever get bored and decide to explore the far reches of Brisbane's rail system, you may very well stumble upon the cached treat that are The Sandkings. A big kid's playground, life-size tonka trucks and sand piles just beg to be played with. Test your fitness and friendships by attempting to run up the sheer-face of a giant sandcastle without removing all the skin of your face. Dangle precariously over the rapidly eroding edges of a quarry, or lay back under the late summer indigo skies of Brisbane, and battle a maze of swamps and cows while trying to make your way back to civilisation. I only have fond memories of the Sandkings.

Midnight Sonata to a blue sky.

Toadie
Ah, Toadie. Originally one of Brisbane's most extensive drains, in terms of area covered and junctions, if you're thinking you'll simply hit up google for the wherabouts of this location, take heed: things have changed since that article you'll find was written. After some major reshuffling of Brisbane's traffic system, the network was cut neatly in two. The drain has definite appeal - if you don't mind the odd toad or eel - but such is life in tidal drains. Featuring the much photographed 'chamber', it's interesting to note that this large room, that appears inexplicably to have been created just for the viewing pleasure of explorers [and arsehole, no talent taggers, who have since destroyed it] - is actually the underside of a bridge that the drain, when it was a river, used flow under. Packed with a few more secrets, and the challenge of finding its long lost twin make this drain an interesting expedition all around - just watch out for insane, shirtless people who claim they're getting chased by ghosts.

An apt ending for those who decided to destroy the chamber with their no-talent tagging...

Wasteland AKA McDonald and East
There's not much to say about this once great location, except that I have fond childhood memories of getting lost inside the shop. Abandoned on the corner of George Street and Turbot Street in Brisbane for many, many years, it went through a gradual process of losing its trademark escalators, and was eventually stripped completely. Not so long after, squatters, junkies and chromers moved in, and turned the place into a complete bordello - a deathtrap combination of 2 story holes in the floor, open lift shafts and a scattering of hypodermics were more than enough reason to leave it be. The only redeeming feature - the watertower on the roof - long since inaccessible since all stairs above the ground floor had been cut. Redevelopment reared its head, and for a brief period the building was surrounded by scaffolding. The junkies were given the boot, and we had a window to get to the roof.

The climb up revealed that junkies had returned. We crept past, and headed onto the roof - or at least what remained of it. Huge holes leered in the corrugated iron, and entire panels were missing. Taking extreme care to pick our way over to the tower, we took our photos, and were about to make our descent when we were joined by a chromer, completely off his tits. Flipping between hyper-aggressive and docile, he inexplicably weaved his way across the roof, managing to avoid every hole on the way - not due in any part to dilligence or accumen, but that sheer luck that seems to accompany the drunk and high. Whether he made it down via the scaffold or the express, who can say.

Honourable Mentions
Thus ends your whirlwind tour of Brisbane Exploration, and we didn't even touch on Swanbank Powerstation A, Brisbane Cranes, or the plethora of other hidden delights that Brisbane has to offer the worthy explorer. What follows is a collection of a few other places that may or may not tantilise you...

If another person claims to 'discover' this location, I swear we'll kill them.


Abandonned rail weigh-bridge


Stranded tinny, Brisbane City.