I'd been there once before, about ten years ago when it was a fairly new creation. Since then the Mt Annan Botanic Gardens have grown up and matured nicely. I found lots of nice little (and not so little) features to admire and explore.
It's near Camden, to the south west of Sydney, and it's 416 hectares in area, and Australia's larget botanic garden. It's run by the same Royal Botanic Gardens & Domain Trust that runs the main Sydney one and the Blue Mountains version at Mt Tomah. Mt Annan's specialty is the display of 'plants from across Australia in both formal and informal settings within a typically Australian landscape'.
There are sculptures, barbecue areas, sundials, picnic areas, a visitor centre, a blue tree, and a cafe. There's a memorial to the aboriginal stolen generation, and there's the Australian Plantbank, which hosts one of the largest native seedbank collections in the world.
There are also lots of Wollemi pines, the 'living fossil from the dinosaur age'. It had been thought to have been extinct for eons, but was found in 1994 in one steep sided valley in the depths of the Wollemi National Park. It's been planted all over the place now, and seems to be rather a happy and hardy species.
And I loved the Sturt's Desert Peas, from central Australia. Bright red, in full flower, and not seemingly worried to be so far from home.
Mt Annan (the mountain itself) is actually a bit of a molehill. I strolled up it, and you do get nice views of the rest of the site, but a rather drab view of the surrounding monocrome grey suburbs.
I might come back more frequently in future.
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