I'm most of the way through my week's stay in Brisbane. My purpose is to catch up with friends and cousins, to enjoy the 24 and 25 degree mid-winter temperatures and to become more familiar with a part of Australia that is thriving culturally and economically.
I've slowed down much more than I normally do when I travel. In this respect, last Wednesday's relaxing 16 hour train journey from Sydney set the tone. Then there's the digital detox effect of staying in a house with no internet access.
I've been able to go online only briefly by using mobile phone data, which is not a bad thing. I've walked in the nearby bushland at Mt Coot-tha, listened to the radio and read books. Most of all, I've appreciated the cluster of cultural institutions at South Bank and the nearby inner city ambience at West End, which is Brisbane's answer to my own home ground of Newtown in Sydney.
Being a frequent traveller, I naturally gravitated towards the Travellers temporary exhibition at the Queensland Art Gallery. The words at the entrance described well the experience and purpose of travel as I see it:
'Travel can capture the imagination, liberating us from the confines of the familiar... By exploring and learning more of others, near and far, a traveller might come to know themselves better'.
A theme of my travel at present is varying the speed. In other circumstances I might 'do' Brisbane in two or three days. This time I'm spending a full week here. In my two previous visits to Tokyo, I've given it just a few days. Next month I'm going there for five weeks, choosing to stay in the one location.
At the entrance to the Travellers exhibition there's a Jeffrey Smart painting that contrasts the swift strides of two runners with the laboured steps of a woman carrying a bag. It's presented as a reflection 'on the different speeds at which we navigate modern life'.
The others whose lives I've learned more of during this trip to Brisbane include my cousins and their children, and my host. He's a friend whom I hadn't seen since I we lived in the same house 30 years ago. We've both faced various challenges and grown older and wiser and more seasoned professionally.