Hobart Botanic Gardens

16/02/09

It is to be a nice easy day today, no major hiking up mountains or down to coastlines. We are going to the Botanic Gardens. As they are free I m not expecting anything spectacular, but it will be a nice morning and some of afternoon, with a small spell in Hobart too.
We get the bus into Hobart. I don’t realise that you have to validate your ticket as you get in. In the UK, you buy your bit of paper, sit down, and get off when you’re ready. Here, you give your money, take a ticket, and have to swipe said ticket (rather like a carnet ticket, with a magnetic stripe on the back) to actually make it valid. This works because the driver takes the money and then keys in the ticket details to the swipe machine. I don’t realise this and the chap behind me looks confused a few minutes later and it turns out that he has got my details on his ticket, when he paid for a return. Oops. We get it sorted out and tickets are swapped!
Trina gives me a whistle-stop tour of the shops in Hobart to show me where to come another day when I’m on my own and we acquire postcards (or course!) and chocolate. There is a choclate shop here to end all chocolate shops. They have vast quantities of everything, including local chocolate NOT made with heaps of carnauba wax. It’s not bad, not bad at all… They even stock Neideregger marzipan and chocolate! The best chocolate here though, has to be the dark-chocolate-coated ginger fudge. It’s heaven…
Thus armed with chocolate, we head for the Botanic Gardens. This involves a bit of a trot through Hobart town centre and over a large tract of mostly barren land called the Domain. Here there is a pathway called the Soldiers’ Walk. It is a memorial to every Tasmanian soldier killed in the service of Aus or the UK. There is a tree and a plaque for every one. It is rather sad, but a nice place to be and a good way to remember. There are creatures here too, a parakeet flaps by, lime-green tail trailing past its red and blue wings and scarlet face. I collect a grey and lime feather. There is also a large moth, presumably not a venomous one (but who knows with these strange, jumbled Aussie beasts!), of rich brown and mustard yellow. Were I in England I would call it some kind of hawkmoth, from its flight and velvety appearance. Here, I have no idea…
We arrive at the Botanic Gardens, and I am pleasantly surprised. This is not a jumbled selection of plants for fun, nor yet is it a deeply scientific and uninspiring collection. It is a glorious display of local flora and significant collections from across Tasmania and the rest of Australia. There are little walkways next to floral ladybirds. A gigantic planted butterfly dominates one lawn. The fuschia house is quite incredible; it is full of the typical little magenta and purple dancers in their big, frilly frock, arms outstretched, while they twirl to music only they can here. I immediately recognise the largest blooms, to my delight, as being those of ‘Voodoo’ which is certainly thriving under some gardener’s tender care. Vistas or pelargoniums and geraniums vie with everlastings and other flowerbeds to produce the most colour. The bees are loving this display. We stop at the French Garden for lunch, where there is a strange and intricate water sculpture, reminiscent of a shipwreck, which it apparently is supposed to be. There are little Banksias here too, which lend themselves to photography, and a rivulet twiddles and falls its way down to the next set of gardens. At the bottom of this little rivulet Trina spots something rather fun; a little frog, ensconced happily in a lily. Not a pond lily, the enormous scented sort. He looks as if he has suddenly found himself in paradise... And probably deserves it too - after all, a climb of a metre up is quite a lot when you are less than two centimetres long! The Japanese garden is particularly peaceful and full of little tumbling water features and two very different bridges – one typically arched and be-bobbled, the other flat decking over the lily pond. There is another lily pond, full of mallards (which aren’t native, grrr…) and which leads on up to a series of little waterfalls.
Fern gardens, a native tree walk, lawns, nooks, crannies and flowers of every kind including a greenhouse with some outlandish and glorious orchids; it is all beautiful – more like Kew than some provincial garden. I am impressed – and we’ll be back here later in the week to watch Shakespeare’s ‘Midsummer Night’s Dream’. I’m really looking forward to that! J

We return to Hobart to find Chelle (who is kindly giving us a lift back), and whilst we are waiting, we wander into a Lush (much excitement when Lush arrived in Tassie apparently!), and enjoy the smells. A shop which stocks English sweets was another stop, and finally we wandered into a sheepskin and opal shop, where I acquire a small ring for the princely sum of $25. I had been meaning to get one to match my necklace (as I don’t wear earrings) and am very pleased; it’s a dainty little milky white opal with traces of rainbow fire and a twinkle set either side of it in the silver surround.

We are retrieved by Chelle, get back and shop for dinner. Trina and I cook (well, she does most of it!) and we have chicken, chorizo, spinach, and pasta in cream sauce, and there would have been chocolate rum truffle balls, except the mixture is still too gooey and I look as if I’ve been throwing mud about the kitchen… So I’ll roll those tomorrow when it’s set!
If it makes it that far…
Dinner is followed by a very good Botrytis Reisling, pale gold and delicately sweet, curling warm and amber over the tongue with a hint of raisins and honey. I wonder if the Botrytis virus is exclusively Aussie or if it is found in other countries too… It’s certainly worth investigating as it makes a fine dessert wine, full-bodied, with plenty of pleasant aftertaste but no harsh after-kick or acidic scrape in the throat.
Mmmmmm…

;)