I got to Southbank for the Australia Day celebrations at about 3 pm, and managed to get photos of sheep-pups, Bollywood Dancing, children in Welsh costume, singers, crowds, fireworks and more.

There are over 100 photos and lots of details about the day…all you have to do is keep reading…

Kylie from the Queensland Working Sheepdog Association shows off a sheep-pup to children (and adults)

These sheep were waiting to be mustered by the sheepdogs.

Who needs the London Eye? We’ve got the Southbank Ferris Wheel!

Surf Life Saving Queensland was busy recruiting new members. They do very important work - the coast of Queensland has some very tricky beaches and it is easy to get in trouble if you don’t keep your wits about you. All the lifesavers in Queensland (and around Australia) are volunteers, and without them it would be very dangerous to go to the beach.

These photos - including this one of two Holden FJ’s are from the
Jiving the FJ exhibition of classic cars.

This is the Holden FX, an earlier model to the FJ.

This car from the 60s is a Holden EJ.

Right next to the classic cars,
Darren J Ray and the Classic Sounds of the Sixties Show played for the crowd

Balloons and face painting.

Near Nova 106.9 FM’s outside broadcast booth,
a huge Novaboy watched over the line of people waiting for face painting.

These children are from the St David’s Welsh Society.

He’s obviously a happy little Vegemite.

Volunteer members of the Queensland State Emergency Service.

The Redland Shire Ladies’ Drum Corps.

For contact details, click here and scroll down the page - its the 17th listing on the page.

Singer-songwriter John Harley Weston. (His myspace page is here)

The “Bollywood Dance” perfomers.

They didn’t just dance for people - they got at least 100 people up on their feet learning contemporary Indian dance moves. The woman in charge was a really effective teacher - she gave simple explanations of how to do all the moves.

She had to keep telling someone else to turn the music on and off and was working to a strict deadline - and after about 20 minutes she had the crowd doing a 2 1/2 minute dance routine.

I’m still looking for contact information for the dancers - check back here, I will post it here when I find it.

Talkin’ The Drum tribal drummers.

Audience dancing to Talkin’ The Drum.

This singer at the Plough Inn was singing
Paul Kelly’s sad song “How to Make Gravy”

Paul Kelly’s website doesn’t just have lyrics - he has the guitar tab diagrams for his songs, and also has links to the sheet music on Musicnotes.com

This is the artificial beach at Southbank - very popular with Brisbanites and visitors.

There are plenty of restaurants at Southbank. Many are a bit expensive, but Decks Seafood Express sells hot chip sandwiches for only $2.

The chip sandwich is a wonderful, traditional part Australian cusine
(originally from the North of England).

Introduced Sacred Ibis are common in Brisbane - click here
to see some photos on Brian ‘Krow’ Aker’s Livejournal.

John Harley Weston played again late in the afternoon, with Pete Devine. The pervious link is to his myspace page, or if you are set up on Last FM you can hear four tracks from his album “Hope Harbour” - you can also buy the album via that link. He also has a myspace page here.

John Harley Weston sells a CD to a listener.

There were two fireworks barges on the Brisbane River, a few hundred metres away from each other - this is the downstream one.

And this is the upstream one.

Help! The glowing baby is after me!

At 7.30 the fireworks display kicked off. If you want to try photographing fireworks, you should read Darren Rowse’s guide at his Digital Photography School.

Nova 106.9 FM’s Emily Jade and
Channel 10’s Wes Denning MC’d the Australia Day concert

Brisbane singer-songwriter Chris Brady sang at the concert.

Brisbane musician Andrew Morris also played -
Chris Brady came out again to share the stage

And so it ended. The Beautiful Girls also played at the concert (they are neither), but I wasn’t able to get any photos of them. (I need a bigger memory card!)

Of course, I’m not the only person who was taking Australia Day photos. Flickr users Komshiki, SHERWIN!!!, David de Groot, iZoom, K*Star, Shaun Johnston, and stephenk1977 all have photos up already.

Do you have any photos or stories from Australia Day that you’d like to share? Just leave a note in the comments.

UPDATE:

Youtube user quyhanh has posted two videos from the Australia Day celebrations: the first is of the fireworks and the second from the Australia Day concert.

[youtube]RfbiH5kOoRI[/youtube]

[youtube]m8jDuMb90nY[/youtube]