Beattie’s Babylon

In February of 2004, as south-east Queensland sweated through a fourth year of drought, a small piece of Melbourne’s inner-city culture broke off and floated north to the grimy but groovy inner-city Brisbane suburb of West End. Think St Kilda of ten years ago, or Newtown with steam-press humidity and geckoes, and you’re part of the way there. West End is a sort of wildlife reserve for Brisbane’s surviving counterculture. Anarchists, lentil-eaters and ageing campaigners for an alternative vision of the Deep North can all be found there, sheltering from the summer heat and holding fast against the yuppie invasions that have turned the south bank of the Brisbane River into a developers’ wonderland.