Travel: Botanic Gardens, Sydney

A friend told me about seeing the "United Buddy Bears" exhibition at Circular Quay, and we thought we'd take a look, only to find we'd missed them (that'll teach me to check with city search first)

Am I showing my age if I say I can remember when going to "town" was only done on special occasions and it seems like that still happens to us, we only go into town for something we can't get in the burbs, and so we rush to whatever and don't take time to look and enjoy.

So we decided to do the tourist thing in our home town and wander up past the Quay to the Botanic Gardens.



Halfway up the hill we came across a little park at Macquarie Place with the historic obelisk marking the point from which all roads out of Sydney were measured.




In the same park was a lovely piece of Victorian ironwork which I'm guessing once housed a drinking fountain



On one side was the admonition to "Keep the pavement dry"



and on the other side was a quote from St. John "Whosoever drinketh of this water shall thirst again, but whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst"
...that's why I think it was a drinking fountain, duh!



Also in the same little triangle of park was a tree planted by Queen Elizabeth in 1954, it seems to have grown well in those 52 years since I remember standing outside my school on Victoria Road with the rest of the kids, for what seemed like hours, waiting to glimpse the Queen as she drove past, and in sheer boredom cheering and waving our flags at the truck drivers who gave us the royal wave in return.


I thought this a poignant reminder of royalty gone wrong while commercialism rules.



I really love old buildings and all the little features our ancestors used to adorn them. The new never seems to have the character of the old, I sometimes think I was born in the wrong era (even though I love my 'puter)



Along Bridge Street we found these gems:






and do you ever look down to what your feet are passing? Can't you just imagine Banjo Patterson sitting behind this window writing to Clancy while he listened to the 'ceaseless tramp of feet'.



At the top of Bridge Street we reached the Conservatorium of Music and the Government House gates entrance to the Botanic Gardens and the Domain, where the sign invites you to walk on the grass and hug the trees.


This is Government House with it's high tech security hedge

We headed straight down to the harbour first, Tom hasn't been fishing for a while so he needed his fix of harbour views

Within the park is a small lake where we could see enormous eels basking around the shallow edges, I think I read once where they come up from the harbour through the stormwater drains, also around the park are the next urban pest, the ibis, though not in the numbers I had expected.



The Victorian Australians loved monuments, sculptures and fountains...and were never happier than when they could combine the lot as a monumental sculpted fountain.

This drinking fountain was built in 1889 by the family of Lewis Wolfe Levy, businessman and philanthropist who migrated to Sydney from London in 1840 and was a member of the Legislative Council.
The water nymph is Diana and the base is red and grey granite cut and polished in Cornwall UK. It was restored in 1999.



The Macquarie Wall - in 1810, at the instigation of Governor Macquarie, work began on a wall 950 feet long, to separate the government domain from the town. Only this small portion of that wall now remains (and no longer keeps the riff raff out)





At the end of the Macquarie Wall is the Lion Gate guarded by a lion and lioness



As well as my love of old buildings, I've also got a thing about trees and the gardens have a collection from all over the world, I'll just post a couple of pictures here of my favourites, I have more of them on my Flickr site






and then we came on the BATS!!!

To be correct, they are Pteropus Poliocephalus or Flying Foxes commonly called Fruitbats.

I knew the Botanic Gardens has been battling the bat colony for years as it continues to expand and permanently damage the historic trees, but until you see them you could not imagine the number and area they have taken over.

Looking like some kind of strange alien seed pod they hang from the trees



and talk about noisy!! I thought bats slept all day, but they flew and wrestled and squabbled constantly and loudly.

The Botanic Gardens have been given a license from the NSW Parks and Wildlife service to use "non-harmful methods" to discourage the bats from nesting here - it hasn't been very successful to date - not sure what the methods are - I once had a friend who (30 years ago) ran a peach orchard outside of Sydney and they could lose half their crop in one night to bats which will fly up to 50 km a night looking for food before returning to their colony. Back then my friend didn't use "non-harmful methods" - she sat her teenage sons outside with .22's......

Here the bats were all over a very pretty flowering Chorisia Speciosa "Floss Silk Tree" from Brazil



Further along was another of those monumental fountains, topped with our first Governor, Captain Arthur Phillip, and symbols of his nautical life.

including Britannia and these wonderful sea serpents


Phew...we are nearly there.....as we started back up toward Macquarie Street we passed the pyramid glass house

and reached the Palace Garden Gates

The story of the Garden Palace building I'll have to research for another time - I know it burnt down in the 1800's but I'm too pooped after loading all these photos to tell the story now.

Then out into Macquarie Street, a mix of new and old architecture, one of the more interesting buildings is the NSW branch of the British Medical Association
I know the symbol next to their name is supposed to be a cadeus, but it looks (more appropriately) like a dollar sign (Macquarie Street being the traditional stamping ground of 'specialist' doctors)


On the way back to the car park - some lovely mellow yellow Sydney sandstone


then driving through Sydney, under the monorail

to the Sydney Fish Markets at Pyrmont where we sat in the sun and had prawns, oysters and calamari while we wondered what the rich people were doing (they were probably eating the scampi at $50 kg - although the kg of prawns cost $25)




and that, friends, is where the camera battery died

I also have pics from the cacti garden within the Botanic Gardens but I'll save those for another post

Garden sculptures

Follow links and you never know where you will end up:
reading Chloe's Place Chloe had a tantalising little hint about something she wants to make which led to Robyne Melia and her stunning wagga quilt (April 12 post)

Wandering through Robyne's blog led me to her fella Ross McLeod from Melbourne at Varporium

Wow, stunning stuff, Ross is a landscape gardener/sculptor/painter, check out all his Varporium links in his side bar for a real treat.

Travel: Linnwood House

Every two months Linnwood, an historic house in a nearby suburb, opens it's doors to the public, they have great activities, sausage sizzle outside, tea and sandwiches inside, lots of crafts people and really big grounds for family picnics.
I belong to the local arts and crafts society and we are regulars at the open days, displaying our work.
It's a really nice relaxed day.

Today the NSW Ambulance Corp band was there, and I'll tell you, Elvis songs sound great played by a big brass band!
These huge gum trees line the driveway from the road to house.


The house was built by George McCredie in 1891 - the whole history is on their web site but briefly the house has had a somewhat rough life - George McCredie died in 1903 and in 1917 his wife leased the property to the Education department as a Boys Truant School, the department later bought the property in 1921.

In 1936 it was converted from a Truant School to a residential girls school for State Wards aged 14yrs and up.

By 1966 it was being used as a Special Training School for Home Science for girls from deprived backgrounds - not strictly an orphanage, but for girls who, for various reasons, could not live in their own homes. The girls were taught housekeeping, cooking and needlework and were schooled on site. As was the case back then with most children in state care, the girls unfortunately were not left with very happy memories of Linnwood.

As the welfare system changed, homes like Linnwood gradually became superfluous to the Dept. and by 1999 all buildings on the estate were virtually empty.

The Friends of Linnwood was formed and now works with the Heritage Office to preserve this lovely old building.

The internal features of the house are really beautiful and considering the previous use of the house, I am amazed the woodwork and stained glass work have survived so well.
This is the entry hall, showing a closeup of one of the wooden panels




this is the glass panel over the front door - all the glass panels appear to be a combination of stained glass and painted glass pictures.


and the panels either side of the front door



Above each internal door is a painted glass fanlight featuring native Australian birds, once again it is surprising that these panels have survived.






In the main entry way is a small side table held up by this little fellow, you can see from the peeling paint behind him, that the house badly needs maintenance but as always in these cases, money is in short supply. Many of the furnishings are original and lots of the antique bric-a-brac in the house was found in storage around the property.


isn't he great, I just love him!



and over one of the fireplaces is this wonderful dragon



So that was my Sunday.

the cacti that ate Paris

Many years ago, after my father died, my mum bought a house in our street to be near us.
As a moving in present, my father-in-law, who was a keen gardener, gave her some plants, including a sweet little cacti which was duly planted near the front door.

I've googled for images and think it might be a Cereus or Column Cactus, but wouldn't swear to it.
Over at This isn't Sydney Spike has a picture of one of these cacti growing in someone's yard at Woy Woy (which, by another weird coincidence, is where my father-in-law and the original cactus piece came from)

Over the next 20 years, the cactus grew and grew



Mum passed away and my son moved into the house. He thought the cactus was 'cool' even after riding his mountain bike down the front steps, catching the handlebar and landing head first into the cactus. He picked spikes out of his head for days.

Son moved away and daughter moved into the house.
She too, thought Nanna's cactus was 'cool' (although she is too cool to use the word cool)

We tried to persuade her that it needs lopping, for safety sake, it's awfully close to the front steps



and it almost lifted the gutter off the house at one stage, the weight in the stems is massive, if one broke and fell ....well, I wouldn't like to be under it.



The cactus only flowers at night, enormous pale yellow flowers which are finished by the next day, sometimes they develop a pod like this



Daughter often spends some quality time standing under her cactus at night, admiring the flowers, talking to the cactus,
She tells me a recent conversation went like this:

"Hello big cactus, your flowers are beautiful, you wouldn't fall on me, would you"

On cue the cactus dropped a flower on her head.

We haven't worked out what it was trying to tell her.

Travel: Sunday drive to Windsor NSW

A wonderful fine cool autumn Sunday so we headed to the street markets at Windsor, an old historic town just before the foothills of the Blue Mountains west of Sydney.
The regular Sunday markets attract a lot of people, especially on a day like today.



As well as looking at the stalls we visited my favourite two shops, the Book Barn and the Fudge shop, we left both shops a little poorer (that's us, not the shops)



At the other end of town is the Macquarie Arms Hotel, favourite sunday watering hole for bikers, the array of motorbikes outside can be spectacular, opposite the pub is a park, with free live music and lots of family groups, nice relaxed way to spend an afternoon.



Then we strolled down to the river - keeping a watch for deep holes and shifting sands -





and discovered stairs and a path going under the road bridge, leading to the seamy underside of beautiful Windsor







but there is always someone who calls it home

Sunday drive

Took this photo on our Sunday drive - no reason, just because the colour was so lush - and one of those strange coincidinks has Stuart at Gardening for Dummies writing about his experiences with kentia palm seeds.

I don't know which variety of palm tree this was, just one of those whoppers that seem to abound in council reserves with waterfrontages.

The currawongs (?) (sigh... have to admit to not knowing my native birds either)were madly fishing through the palm but I couldn't see if they were eating the seeds or the insects.

The ducks and gulls were more interested in our fish and chips.

I'm back...

despite that brilliant last post in December, I had no offers to buy my blog so after almost expiring in the summer heat, along with my garden, parts of which did expire, I seem to be back.

We lost a few plants, my kangaroo paws planted in November curled up their toes, that's twice I've tried to grow them and have lost out so cross them off my list.

Over the school holidays GD helped me create a herb garden which seems to be doing OK - we are up to the armpits in basil - and in the process I moved a heap of jonquil bulbs which are now putting up green shoots (isn't it a bit early?) they hadn't flowered for a while so we'll see what they do in the new spot.

So next I divided some agapanthus and pulled out heaps of african iris one of those feral creatures that runs mad when allowed. Also divided some bromeliads and found this little fellow:

Doesn't he look in a contemplative mood, with chin on hand, wonder what he was thinking about - (no I didn't move his clump of plants)

The Great Escape

We built them a nice little fernery,
Most of them seem quite happy....
I know sometimes I forget to water, and they watch their neighbours wither,
ok - I admit that's enough to make a few plants feel a little insecure and nervous,
but is it any excuse when my back is turned to do a Steve McQueen on me,
and does it have to look so damned happy about getting out!

Garden 2000 by Mark Quinn

thought you might find this interesting,

Garden (2000) by Marc Quinn is a real botanical garden, full of plants and flowers from all over the world. They are displayed in full bloom, and are potentially eternal: the nearly 1000 specimens are immersed in twenty-five tons of liquid silicon....