Riverfire
In Australia, seasons are defined meteorologically, not astronomically. In the Northern Hemisphere summer will end and autumn will begin in late-September, but in Australia winter ended and spring began September 1. To kick of the season, Brisbane holds an annual River Festival, with activities focused around or on the Brisbane River for a little over a week.
It was still two and a half hours until the main event was to begin, but people were already staking our their spots all along the river. Speakers were set up on poles along the river edge and were broadcasting the radio station sponsoring the event. A little after 5:00 six prop planes few overhead and began doing acrobatic moves in very tight formations. They would swoop in from one end of the river and shoot up into stunts above the city and then come back and do things in the opposite direction.
A bit after 5:30 we found a decent spot in front of most of the crowd and sat down there. Val and I had packed a dinner, but Natalie and Chris had not and they didn't want to sit there until 7:00 so they found some food and watched from elsewhere in the crowd.
We knew the time had almost arrived when the CityCat and City Ferry stopped running and the only vessels in the river were a few anchored barges and police boats. Suddenly, two F-111s flew in from the east over the river did their first of two flyovers and "dump-and-burns" of the evening. They flew in at 300 ft. and shot up to 10,000 ft. - it was awesome! Their second appearance was after the fireworks show.
After to F-111s the choreographed fireworks show began and the barges up and down the river launched an amazing display of fireworks into the air. It was cool to see how it was coordinated with the music and similar fireworks were exploding from the various launching points along the river. One of my favorite parts of the 30 minute show was when we glanced over to the footbridge connecting South Bank to QUT (Queensland University of Technology) and it wasn't launching fireworks into the air, but rather it was spilling them into the river. White fireworks were falling from the bridge downward to create the appearance of a waterfall - it was beautiful (check out the album to see my attempt at photographing it).
Another cool part of the show was while one of the songs was playing along with the fireworks, every time the singer said the word "love" (which was quite frequently) pink fireworks would explode in the shape of a heart. The grand final (or grand finale as one of the DJs on the radio choked out - not something they say here) was impressive and of course the second dump-and-burn by the F-111s topped it off quite nicely. Last year (as surely was true this year) the F-111s were seen as far away as the Gold Coast (about 50 miles away).
The fireworks at Ekka made up for my missing fireworks on the 4th of July in the USA, but Riverfire really raised the bar ... sorry America, Brisbane has my vote for the world's best fireworks show I've ever seen.
Saturday night was the big opening ceremony - Riverfire. Val, Chris, Natalie and I took the CityCat from Guyatt Park to South Bank and planned on either watching the festivities from South Bank or one of the bridges crossing the river. When we got off the CityCat, there were people checking our bags to make sure we weren't sneaking anything in to the event and they also checked that we had actually paid for our ferry tickets. Upon wandering around South Bank some more we discovered that the entire area was fenced in and there were checkpoints at the few entrances. Parts of a few of the roads had been closed off too.
It was still two and a half hours until the main event was to begin, but people were already staking our their spots all along the river. Speakers were set up on poles along the river edge and were broadcasting the radio station sponsoring the event. A little after 5:00 six prop planes few overhead and began doing acrobatic moves in very tight formations. They would swoop in from one end of the river and shoot up into stunts above the city and then come back and do things in the opposite direction.
A bit after 5:30 we found a decent spot in front of most of the crowd and sat down there. Val and I had packed a dinner, but Natalie and Chris had not and they didn't want to sit there until 7:00 so they found some food and watched from elsewhere in the crowd.
We knew the time had almost arrived when the CityCat and City Ferry stopped running and the only vessels in the river were a few anchored barges and police boats. Suddenly, two F-111s flew in from the east over the river did their first of two flyovers and "dump-and-burns" of the evening. They flew in at 300 ft. and shot up to 10,000 ft. - it was awesome! Their second appearance was after the fireworks show.
After to F-111s the choreographed fireworks show began and the barges up and down the river launched an amazing display of fireworks into the air. It was cool to see how it was coordinated with the music and similar fireworks were exploding from the various launching points along the river. One of my favorite parts of the 30 minute show was when we glanced over to the footbridge connecting South Bank to QUT (Queensland University of Technology) and it wasn't launching fireworks into the air, but rather it was spilling them into the river. White fireworks were falling from the bridge downward to create the appearance of a waterfall - it was beautiful (check out the album to see my attempt at photographing it).
Another cool part of the show was while one of the songs was playing along with the fireworks, every time the singer said the word "love" (which was quite frequently) pink fireworks would explode in the shape of a heart. The grand final (or grand finale as one of the DJs on the radio choked out - not something they say here) was impressive and of course the second dump-and-burn by the F-111s topped it off quite nicely. Last year (as surely was true this year) the F-111s were seen as far away as the Gold Coast (about 50 miles away).
The fireworks at Ekka made up for my missing fireworks on the 4th of July in the USA, but Riverfire really raised the bar ... sorry America, Brisbane has my vote for the world's best fireworks show I've ever seen.
