Post 8- To The East
This evening I'm writing this from my little motel room in Takapuna New Zealand, and from all the travel I'm feeling exhausted! So, I hope this blog reads well! Rounding out my little excursions of the best of each sides of Brisbane, here are some of the best displays on offer on the East Side!
This was the shortest evening of viewing for me, but even with the few houses of commendation, there are still some pretty good finds! I began my journey for the evening heading out to Victoria Point. I love how Christmas lights displays seem to encourage other members of the community to to get involved, and driving around Victoria Point I really noticed this! If you drive East along Benfer Road and follow this with a left at Colburn Ave, you won't see any prize winning displays, but will get a sense of a festive and creative community.
My first stop was at a highly commended house located at 17 Fairway Drive Victoria Point. This beautiful traditional display invited you into a front yard full of multi colour Christmas Light goodness. I haven’t seen a display yet that had used multi coloured strings to such great effect. Some of the detail including is incredible including the fairy light trails that followed every horizontal line of Brickwork on the house (checkout that photo- though it doesn't do it justice) plus a clever robot which freakishly skirted around the front driveway handing out candy canes. A pity with such great care and detail of the fairy lights following the brickwork, it’s a shame the lights on the front fence didn’t follow the architecture.
I then proceeded to head back towards Brisbane dropping by to check out a neighbourhood of displays at Brandella Place in Belmont. In the past this has been a heavy contender on the 4KQ awards circuit flanking best neighbourhood categories as well as some individual houses claiming Best Display Awards in there own rights. This year unfortunately this strip took out no awards or accolades but still is worth the trip to check out, just for it’s shear scale. There are at least 20 house involved along this street to varying degrees. The parking in the area in atrocious, plus you can’t park on the strip so it is worth parking a few streets back and walking the street. It's the best way to experience this street.
From there I headed to the Runner Up Best Neighbourhood in Brisbane located at Melrose Court in Carindale. This time, an even tighter culdersac with only single car width streets. The further you can park away from the street, the more you'll stay out of a jam! I find this entry to be borderline neighbourhood as it seems only three houses are involved, but I suppose it filled the whole caldersac, so maybe that’s fine. Some beautiful sophisticated displays- each house alone holding its own merit which isn't usual for a neighbourhood. A beautiful feature of this neighbourhood is a breathtaking 20m arched walkway of lights down the footpath. I found no real continuity between the displays of these houses, which I believe helps create a great neighbourhood, and I feel from a family and display point of view, the Belmont district still feels like better value of your time (if you can get a park!) in my opinion.
Another display with a 4KQ Judges commendation is located at 35 Oakley St, Carindale. Upon arrival, I noticed there were a number of houses surrounding number 35 also covered with lights, another great example of some of the bigger displays encouraging more houses to create small displays. Unfortunately I felt number 35 and it neighbours house displays, although looking quite bright and engulfing the plants in the garden, which looks great. Overall however I felt these displays were from a technique and design point of view, quite poorly executed. The way some of the light strings were hung felt a little too poor and rushed. I felt there was no theme and the colour mix gave me a very uninviting, creepy, depressed feeling. Unless you live nearby, I wouldn’t check out these.
The 4KQ Winning display for the East Side of Brisbane is located at D’Arcy Road in Carina. From the front, this is a bright stunning display, with lots of colour and movement, a full working train set running through the garden plus an ice cream van! Woo! I feel like this display didn’t take very good advantage of available architecture of the built environment including fences and the house itself, which is a pity. I also felt there was no overall theme and the colours mixes a little lackluster. It’s a shame that sometimes the brightest display wins in these competitions over the cleverest.
Nearby there is a synchronised display at Elwell St. It’s a nicely timed display, but only really worth staying for one song, because once you’ve seen one, the effects are much the same as the next! Worth stopping by if you were in the area to check out D’Arcy street.
The runner up display for Best Display of the East the area is located at Stella Street in Holland Park West. A good tradition light display, this house is a must for walking through the beautiful gardens, and the display used the garden and followed the architecture of the property to good effect. I hope in future years they use more of the house and link it better to the garden with a centralised concept or theme.
Well, that's the tour done, stay tuned as I will be giving you my Statistically best Top Five Displays in Brisbane! Plus I may chuck in a few more wildcard entries!
Missing you Brisbane!
Love Jason xx
