During summer, the mountains behind Brisbane are hot and humid, and the crowds flock to them. Tourists and residents swarm through the bushland and over the lookouts to enjoy the heat and the views, but in winter, the air cools quickly, and the chill winds tug at clothes made for the beach. We sit with our legs hanging from the lookout, huddled against ourselves as the sky slips into darkness.
The sunsets are vibrant and made more so by their brevity. The day becomes a kaleidoscope of colour, but the shifting mosaic lasts only a few minutes before the night wipes it away. From the top of Mt Coot-tha, we can see it all, the city stretching away, the bay still and shimmering, and the mountains that trap the warmth during summer.
Beneath us, the traffic snakes along the motorways away from the city, and we watch as the lights slowly sweep across the buildings, a blanket of artificial day being draped over the world below. Behind us, the cafes and shops and restaurants are closed, and only one other group remains to watch the winter night form.
We stay until the spots of light that punctuate the high-rise begin to flicker away and the suburbs in the distance come to life, and then, we catch the last bus back. The rattling wheels twist through bushland and past graveyards and highways and on into the city proper where the night is in full bloom but hidden from our vantage point on the mountain.
nomadic snapshots 