If the answer’s yes to either or both, consider Brisbane, Australia, one of the world’s most livable cities, according to a 2014 Monocle Magazine index.
Unique among Australia’s major cities, sunny Brisbane has a beach right on the doorstep of its central business district.
Its setting is South Bank, the lively entertainment and cultural precinct that — as the name implies — sits on the south bank of the Brisbane River.
This is where the city comes for recreation and entertainment, to eat and drink at casual riverside restaurants and bars, listen to impromptu music shows, ride a giant Ferris wheel, check out street artists and nighttime light shows, take in a formal concert at the performing arts center and visit art galleries and the state museum and library.
South Bank
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One is Tangalooma on Moreton Island, a 75-minute ferry ride from Brisbane’s Holt Street Wharf at Pinkenba, the other is Point Lookout on North Stradbroke Island, about 60 minutes from the Brisbane suburb of Cleveland by water taxi or vehicular ferry, then island bus.
Tangalooma offers whale watching from June until late November and the chance to feed dolphins in the wild.
Point Lookout not only is one of the best whale-watching spots on the Australian east coast, it’s home to a magic surf break that just keeps on delivering wave after wave.
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