29/5/2022 – Sunday – ?km

Up early & walking through the gates of the Adelaide Botanical Gardens just after the gates opened at 9am, with a parking spot just next to a gate. The gardens are full of people walking dogs & we find out it is the million paws walk charity day, dogs everywhere.  The gardens are beautiful, well laid out & well maintained, it is a credit to all the gardeners working there. The different garden sections are very interesting & we are taken by some of the buildings, stunning in the sunshine today.

The first & most striking building we see is the Bicentennial Conservatory, a very large glass roofed wedge that houses the tropical rainforest plants with an elevated walkway through the canopy as well as a ground walkway. Outside of this on the pathway is a beautiful & interesting glass sculpture in a pool called “Cascade”, stunning in the different lights we saw it in during different parts of the morning.

The rainforest walk next to the building is full of very tall trees & beautiful, though a little cool first thing of the morning.  We soon warmed up when we went into the heated glasshouse pavilion that houses the giant Amazon waterlily from Guyana, such an amazing size. The main lake has a small flock of ibis tending to nests in a gum tree & next to that is an amazingly large conifer with branches drooping down into the water & beautiful autumn russet tones, it is picture perfect with the reflections off the water.

The Palm House is another beautiful glass pavilion with stunning blue coloured glass highlights. This has a cactus & succulent garden outside with more cactus inside, so many varieties & so many interesting shapes & sizes. We walk all the way around the many different sections & kept getting delighted with the new vistas we saw as a garden opened up or a path led us around a new corner. There was one spot we stopped that had a tree shivering in the sunlight as a gentle breeze caressed it & dropping masses of leaves & on the tree trunk a dappled silver & leaves a stunning silver yellow. It held us mesmerised, a magic moment.

The Santos Exhibition in the Museum of Economic Botany was very interesting showcasing some of the many uses plants have in the lives of everyone. The display was very well set out & labelled with a wide variety of plant seeds, barks, resins, leaves & their uses. The building the display is housed in has an elaborately beautiful ceiling as well. This museum is the only one outside Kew Gardens in London which Joseph Banks set up especially on his Australian botanical collection.

All too soon it was 11.30am & time to go, we are meeting some friends for lunch. As we drive out through the city we admire some of the many old buildings in the city as well as some of the new buildings, there are some clever architects in Adelaide. We meet our friends at 12.30pm at the Henley Beach Hotel & have a very nice lunch of squid, fish & chips plus a red wine and talk & talk, we have not seen Carol & Judy for so long.  Carol brought along a couple of her photo albums, we have so many happy memories to share & to catch up about the time since we last saw each other. All too soon we finish up at 4.30pm as a big storm is approaching & we all want to go before it hits. Just as we drive back into the campground the first spots of rain start to fall.   We only just managed to get the washing off & the door closed before the rain comes down. Another great day.