Bound for South Australia - 9: Port Augusta

 

 

 

The solar power tower just south of Port Augusta uses an array of mirrors to focus the sun's heat, which is stored in molten salt. This is used to drive a steam turbine to generate electricity.

 

 

 

I enjoyed a stroll around the Australian Arid Lands Botanic Garden.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The view from the bird hide therein. No birds at that moment. But pictures of the ones that could have been there.

 

Port Augusta is where the Augusta Highway crosses the top pointy bit of Spencer Gulf. When Matthew Flinders was here in 1802 he made a note of the red cliffs. 

 

Lots of road trains pass through here on their way north to NT or west to WA.

More Sunshine greenery: Maleny Botanic Gardens

It's a fabulous location,overlooking the Glasshouse Mountains, near Maleny in the Sunshine Coast hinterland. They've a Bird World too, but we didn't quite get to that yet.

Buderim greenery 2: Maroochy Bushland Botanic Gardens

After the fires - Mt Tomah

The Botanic Garden at Mt Tomah had a very close shave during the fires. The brave firies and the staff members put in a lot of work and saved it from the grim fate that befell most of the bushland all around it. It's now open again, and most of it is a green and pleasant oasis.














By contrast, this is the view of the western side of the mountain

Another botanic garden: Mt Tomah

I was showing a visitor around last week, and returning from a day in the Blue Mountains, we called in at the Blue Mountains Botanic Garden at Mount Tomah.

It's been a long time since I was last there, and the gardens have matured nicely.




As is the way with these places, it's divided into lots of sections. There's a formal garden, a rock garden, a bog garden, rhododendrons, woodlands, and a Gondwana walk. Plus, interestingly, an explorers' walk. Not the usual line-up of explorers though. These were 14 plant explorers who went collecting in Asia over 300 years. There's also a conifer section, with, not surprisingly, some fine specimens of the ancient, recently rediscovered, Wollemi Pine. (A bit of a 'Jurassic Park' theme to go along with these.)

The formal garden was looking a bit on the informal side, I thought. The problem seemed to be the brush turkeys which had made themselves at home there!





More at: https://www.bluemountainsbotanicgarden.com.au/

Auburn's cherry blossoms, furry friends and feathered show-offs

Auburn's Botanic Gardens held its Cherry Blossom Festival the other week. Its nice little Japanese garden was overrun by admiring visitors taking their selfies in front of the cherry trees and obscuring the view of the concrete Mt Fuji that lurks somewhere in there.

I went back a few days later to check out the gardens at leisure, and it was well worth the visit. There are 9 hectares to explore. As well as the Japanese garden,  there's a reflection pool, a scented garden, a rose garden, a native garden, a billabong, a rainforest and more.

I nearly forgot the fauna reserve. Sleepy kangaroos and an albino wallaby were being entertained by a curious emu and some extraordinarily showy peacocks.


More at:
http://www.cumberland.nsw.gov.au/facilities/regional-gardens/auburn-botanic-gardens/

Australian National Botanic Gardens

We had a quick look at Canberra's botanic gardens, and it was enough to see that we'd need to come back and spend a day there another time to take it in properly. It's a big and complex site, and boasts 6300 species of native plants. They say it's the only place in the world where you'll see this diversity of Australian flora in one place.

The layout was rather confusing, mind.  We tried to follow the 'main loop' track, but kept finding we'd wandered off it and were heading in the opposite direction to what we'd expected from the map. But not to worry, it was all very pleasant.






And the (reptilian) natives were quite unfazed by our presence.

And yet more Vivid

Sure it's only a light show, and some are saying they're livid about Vivid being only a light show once again. But I went back anyway to see a little more.

This time to Circular Quay, the Opera House, and the Botanic Gardens (celebrating their 200th year as 'Australia's oldest scientific institution' with a light show).

Mt Annan Botanic Gardens

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.