Bopping Around the Botanical Gardens

I met up with Kayleigh and her friend Kim a few days before New Years to finally visit the Botanical Gardens for the first time since 2009. I approached the entrance from the Government House side and saw this statue surrounded by the NYE poster flags, which was rather a nice juxtaposition of the historic and the new, if you forgive the pretentiousness.

It was a pretty warm day, and we were slightly lazy, so we kind of wandered around the gardens a bit and rested on the grass a few times with a view of the harbour inlet. I was pleased to be able to identify this moorhen that was floating in the pond.

We laughed at this statue on the stair because it looked so much like the ancient bearded guy was talking on his cell phone (aka mobile). Clearly there was something important going on.

I left the others chilling in a gazebo (their feet were sore) and wandered up to Bennelong point, which stuck out just opposite the Opera House, hence this awkward self-photographed shot of me and the two Sydney landmarks.

I then rounded the point to see Mrs Macquarie’s Chair, which was overlooking the harbour on the other side of the Gardens, facing the Pacific coast edge and away from the Opera House (if that makes sense). The Macquaries governed the Sydney colony in its early years, something like 1810-1820 (or maybe 1800-1810?) and were really big in improving the buildings and expanding the city. Apparently the missus liked the gardens a lot, so they built this chair where she liked to sit and gaze out over the harbour. It was an okay view, although slightly marred by some freight ships and a big tree, so I’ll just show the chair.

On the way back to the main gardens I saw this awesome bottle tree, which reminded me of my study abroad where we studied lots of cool plants. The bottle tree, found in Queensland, holds water in its trunk so it swells up like a camel’s hump.

We eventually left the gardens and went off to use a coupon for roast chicken at Nandos, this Portuguese restaurant chain that I had never heard of but apparently is common in England as well as Australia. But here’s a carved treetrunk from an Aboriginal artist from the area that reminded me a bit of a totem pole.