Queensland Reds

... and whites and even muddy browns. BERNARD ORSMAN discovers that Brisbane is shrugging off its image as a backwater and beginning to establish a more sophisticated, modern identity.

Compared with Sydney's LA-style brashness and Melbourne's old world gentility, Brisbane is a city coming of age. Its urban identity is cut out for Australia's third-largest city and the state capital of Queensland.

Queensland is synonymous with the Sunshine Coast, a stone's throw north of Brisbane, and the Gold Coast, a stone's throw south.

So spending time in Brisbane hardly seems the point of visiting the state. Don't believe it.

Brisbane is undergoing a Wellington-like metamorphosis with the rise of a cafe culture, fine restaurants, a lively arts scene and the development of the Brisbane River, the city's leading attraction.

While I was visiting Brisbane, the right-wing coalition was trounced by the Labour Party in the Queensland state elections. After shaking off an election rorts scandal, Premier Peter Beattie had a smile as wide as a watermelon as he promised to make Queensland the "smart state."

The local Chamber of Commerce head, Andrew Craig, appeared on television ecstatic at the election result - stability and certainty his way of saying Brisbane was set to hum.

Post-election hype, yes. But I couldn't help being carried along by such cocky talk.

Also working hard to shake off the image of Brisbane as a large country town masquerading as a city is Lord Mayor Jim Snoorley. He has banned cars from parking in downtown streets, cafes have been encouraged to put out tables on the pavement in the sub-tropical heat and the Brisbane River has been opened up with walkways and the City Cat ferry.

Kate, from Brisbane Marketing, does the sensible thing by introducing a group of New Zealand junketeers to the city with a City Sights tour, past the oldest buildings in the city, including the old Commissariat Store built by convicts and the old Customs House and City Hall built from sandstone. This is followed by a river trip on the City Cat - which locals have been known to cruise on all day with a picnic. It costs $A18 ($22), which allows unlimited ferry and bus travel for a day.

The Brisbane River is a muddy-brown, salty waterway that winds round the main downtown district much like the Thames at the rejuvenated Isle of Dogs in London.

The cat plies a 20km round trip, passing highlights such as the Botanic Gardens, which started as a convicts' vegetable garden in 1825; the stone cliffs near the Story Bridge, popular with rock climbers; and river apartments and tacky mansions belonging to the rich and famous.

There are stops along the way, including the South Bank, site of the 1988 World Expo where an artificial freshwater beach has been laid. The South Bank also boasts the Performing Arts Complex, along with the Queensland state art gallery and museum and the state library.

Local historian Brian Ogden informs us on a walking tour of the city that Brisbane began as a penal colony in 1824 notorious for harsh treatment.

The Governor of New South Wales, Sir Thomas Brisbane, was sent north on the lookout for a new penal settlement when he stumbled on a group of escaped convicts who had been found by Aborigines and shown where to find spring water - 25km inland from the mouth of the Brisbane River.

In 1837 free settlers pushed for the end of the convict settlement, gold rushes provided the catalyst for growth and led to Queensland becoming a separate colony in 1859 with Brisbane as the capital.

Brian, a walking encyclopaedia on murder, betrayal, heroes and villains, bless his soul, cannot compete with the aroma of a Merlo coffee which Kate kept telling us is the best in Brisbane. It is the same smirk she puts on when boasting that Brisbane has more cafes per head of population than Sydney or Melbourne - and not a single Starbucks in sight.

On the way back to town from a quick whiz up to the Mt Coot-tha lookout, which has a traditional-style restaurant and great views of Brisbane, Kate swings the Falcon into a small, boxlike factory where Dean Merlo roasts coffee and sells it to the public. Dean was a lawyer before he packed in the legal profession to take over his father's cafe. Now the charming Italian has a large slice of the local coffee market, as well as selling coffee through a string of Merlo cafes which have cakes to die for.

Merlo coffee is missing from New Zealand chef Philip Johnson's e'cco bistro, but that does not matter. e'cco symbolises everything that is great about modern Australasian cuisine: stylish, relaxed, funky and has a terrific level of service. e'cco was voted the best restaurant in Australia in 1997 by Remy Martin Cognac and Australian Gourmet Traveller.

I don't know how good the food was then, or if it has got better as some reviewers suggest, but it is one of the best meals I have eaten, and reasonably priced.

All the starters are $16.50, mains $26.50 and desserts $11.50. I shall never forget the salad of prosciutto, grilled pears, hazelnuts and gorgonzola. Or how about grilled snapper, saffron potatoes, baby leeks, tomato, mint and orange salsa. And for dessert? Roasted peaches, peach ice cream and biscuit. All simple, perfectly matched flavours. And I really appreciate a wine list drawn up with the same passion as the menu and the chance to try excellent wines by the glass.

Talking about wine, Brisbane, or Queensland for that matter, is not renowned like Australia's southern states for making fine wine but that has not stopped wine tourism from catching on.

At Mt Cotton, 20 minutes south-east of Brisbane on a scenic back road to the Gold Coast, entrepreneur Terry Morris has spent $15 million creating a winery and 200-seat restaurant on top of a hill with a lovely, hazy view out across Moreton Bay to Stradbroke Island.

Leanne, a winery assistant from Christchurch, takes us through a range of wines, from simple, clear-focused chardonnay in the budget Moreton Bay range to a lovely, spicy reserve Shiraz with grapes derived from South Australia.

For lunch, we eat a divine platter of duck sausage, South Australian scampi, smoked salmon wrapped round crostini sticks, tuna sushi with goat's cheese, venison carpaccio with porcini mushrooms and, I know this sounds naff, chicken vol-au-vents.

But whoever thinks Brisbane has not progressed past vol-au-vents and is still a large country town masquerading as a city is wrong. Brisbane is a pleasant surprise.