One trip EVERY month: February

This month I took a trip without leaving town:  my husband and I hopped on our bikes and rode to the National Botanic Gardens.

I posted about the Gardens not long ago, here.  But what I didn’t tell you is that it’s a great place to de-stress.  Just take a look at the Eastern Water Dragon up in the header.  Is he stressed?  Nup.  He strolled up onto the café deck from the forest floor to sun himself, not at all afraid of the visitors.  The dragons are a thrill for café customers taking morning tea.  But of course you can’t go there for coffee and cake and leave without exploring the unique gardens and forests and the comprehensive collection of native Australian plants.

Up in the dry gardens, there are tall eucalyptus trees that are a living support system for other life forms like staghorns and climbing hardenbergia and fungus.  How beautiful are the burnt black and rust tones of the flaky bark on that tree I spotted near the bike racks!  It’s simply nature imitating art.  Down in the rainforest, accessible by timber steps and boardwalks, it’s darker and the atmosphere is noticeably cooler and more humid.  I read the sign telling me to ‘breathe’, and instinctively did.  The air was fresh and cool and clean.  Here, tree ferns and Stream lilies, ‘Helmholtzia glaberrima’, one of the few flowers in these Botanic Gardens, grow in lush gardens beside the stream that flows below the wooden path you’re walking on.  Writing about it makes me want to go there right now.

I wonder where March will take me!

Marianne at East of Málaga came up with this idea of taking a trip every month.  Check out her February trip post to the Rock of Gibraltar.

7 Replies to “One trip EVERY month: February”

  1. Feeling calmer just having read your post 🙂 What fabulous tree trunks with the fungus growing on them, Trish.

    MY trip in March is to Iceland …. stay tuned!

  2. If there’s a forest with a stream near you to wander in (and I think there is), I recommend it. Thanks for the compliment.

  3. He’s very friendly. Dragons aren’t afraid of people, so some visitors feed them human food, but they shouldn’t.

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