Brisbane ABC – Bulimba
Bulimba is a suburb in the City of Brisbane, 4 kilometres north-east of the CBD. The 2016 Australian Census recorded a population of 6,843. Bulimba is an aboriginal word meaning ‘place of the magpie lark’.
In 1885, the first bicycle (Safety Cycle) in Queensland was built by Reginald Blunt of Bulimba and proudly raced on by Brisbane cyclist Peter Dowd.
On the day we visited it was cold and windy. Our first impression of Bulimba is that it is similar to Mosman in Sydney, an upmarket suburb. It felt nice walking around and we enjoyed the variety of housing, parks and the river front walk. It was interesting looking across the river to Newstead and seeing the paths we often run on for our morning run.
We enjoyed a coffee in Bulimba Memorial Park. The Bulimba Memorial park is heritage listed, and was purchased in 1904 by the Balmoral Shire Council and named ‘Jamieson Park’ after the early Bulimba resident Robert Jamieson who originally donated approximately four hectares of land. In honour of the World War One servicemen lost in the conflict, the name of the park was changed to the Bulimba Memorial Park on 4 November 1919, trees were planted, and an honour board was mounted. Each tree was dedicated to a Bulimba serviceman, and labelled with plaques.
Being cold and windy we did not stay as long as we might have otherwise. We then took a walk along the river and also out Vic Lucas Park from where we could look at to Hamilton (cruise ship terminal) which is where we sometimes cycle too.
One of the things we have noticed is that since Covid many people are putting out Teddy Bears in their gardens to make walking around the suburbs a little more interesting. We have enjoyed seeing a large number of Teddies all over Brisbane.