Flowers in Canberra

This is what we came to see! The Floriade in Canberra! The car was packed and we had a wonderful relaxed drive over the hills and far away to the nation's Capitol. We made a brief stop at historic Braidwood to stretch the legs and buy a loaf of bread for lunch. (Which we brought "home" because we ended up buying something for lunch!) Thanks to the GPS we managed to find a wonderful place to park the car that was just across a foot bridge from the Floriade. We could not have found a place closer to park if we had tried!

Four hours was spent wandering around the thousands of tulips and daffodils and taking photos and chatting to people.

Nola was instructed to move one of the wheelbarrow displays - well not really! It was just a fun photo idea - that worked! A couple of people saw what I had staged and immediately moved in to do the same thing so I relieved them of their camera and got the two of them pretending to move two wheel barrows full of red tulips, they were delighted!

Inside one of the marquees I discovered an unusual competition - a fashion show of clothes made from plants and flowers. What a strange idea. The two shown here were winners, but there were lots of interesting ideas. The floral displays outside were colourful and yet (to me) a little disappointing. I think the flowers were either "passed it" or else needed another couple of days to come out. At least the weather has been kind so far and it looks as if the rest of the week of the display is going to be free of rain and strong wind so the displays will not get damaged by the elements.
The mechanical organ "Australia Fair" was playing jolly music next to the fun park, A school choir was singing joyfully under a large marquee and the University orchestra was playing interesting contemporary music on a stage under a "Shell" so as well as visual delights there were audio ones too!
Plans were to stop at Braidwood on the return trip and take a few shots of the very interesting buildings but when we reached the town the clouds were back in place and it was dull and cold so we happily decided to delay this photographic pleasure for another day!
We shall be making another trip to Canberra so there should be a few more photos to add to my collection.
AJ