Skip to main content

Floriade

It's been quite a few years since we last visited Floriade. When I lived and studied in Canberra the tulip festival marked the end of the dreary colourless winter and the beginning of the far more pleasant spring (albeit one with the hazard of the swooping magpie).

The effect is lessened by living in largely seasonless Sydney but I'll take any excuse to visit one of my favourite cities. It is only a two and a half our drive from our house and dual carriageway the whole route.

We have travelled this route countless times, but there are always differences to spot in the landscape. As a whole, the fields were quite green, although the poplars lining the start of the Federal Highway were still empty of leaf, despite the looming arrival of the second month of spring. And Lake George was still an empty expanse of green pasture, though I thought I could see some water in the distance. I love that stretch of the highway, steep hills on the right and the mysterious lake on the left. I can imagine it s the backdrop to a fantasy movie.


It is always exciting to cross that last hill and see Canberra before you, the Black Mountain Tower against the backdrop of the Brindabellas.

The fields of flowers at Floriade were as beautiful as ever. Rather than attempt to describe it I will let the pictures speak for themselves.


A lot of people complain that Canberra is a dead city. I guess they miss the crowds. The new developments with the Canberra Centre in Civic look great, but the area was quiet on the Saturday afternoon, the shops uncrowded and the offices unoccupied. I like the peace and quiet as it leaves much more room for the imagination than do bustling crowded places.

Inspired by the flowers we stopped by some nurseries at Pialligo, near Canberra's airport. Canberra's centralisation of services means that there's no need to drive around the whole city searching for shops as they tend to cluster in distinct areas based upon the type of service. We didn't purchase any flowers, but we buy a bonsai starter pack... See, we are still under the influence of Japan!


It was late in the afternoon when we began our drive home. We both agreed that this was our favourite time for travel, when the light has a golden hue and the shadows are long. It reminded me of journeys past and made me wish this was just the beginning. I would have liked to pull into a roadside motel outside a small town, to eat a dinner in the local diner or Chinese restaurant that all such towns seem to have.

But our dog awaited us at home and there are few such towns now between Canberra and Sydney. We did stop by one of the service centres for snacks and laughingly observe a Queensland van drive the wrong way down the road and try to park by driving over a low concrete barrier.

As we entered greater Sydney we found ourself in the wrong lane and were forced up the Heathcote Road turn-off. It still lead back to our house but now in a single lane and around the southern outskirts of Sydney in the dark.

It was nice to get out of the house on the long weekend and I think that the car enjoyed a drive of a decent length. It's probably not the last time we will visit Canberra this year.

More photos.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Asagaya and heading home

How can I be happy? I am about to return to a country where the toilets have at most two buttons and no seat warmers. But the tickets are booked and there are no cyclones, typhoons or other disasters standing in our way. It's almost time to go back to my first home. First B wants to do some "local shopping". So we catch the Chuo Line up a few stations to Asagaya, a residential area with a number of Shotengai, covered and uncovered arcades leading away from the station and narrow alleys lined with bars. It is an interesting area for a wander around. We are mainly looking, do some shopping for toothbrushes and sweets from Seiyu, a Wal-Mart owned supermarket/minor department store. We skipped breakfast and lunch is ramen and gyoza at a small restaurant near the entrance to the Pearl Centre shotengai. With the help of a staff member, I manage to purchase tickets at a branch of Lawson to the Ghibli Museum for a friend travelling to Japan in May. There are some...

IKEA Museum

We have a packed itinerary today. Flat packed and assembled with an Allen key. There are patches of snow on the ground that weren't there the previous evening. We are a bit sad to leave the Duxiana after the comfy beds and the breakfast of cold cuts, fruits and hot waffles. I tried the Swedish caviar on my boiled egg. It was... Interesting. I was very disappointed to realise that, after talking it up for months, I had forgotten the Disgusting Foods Museum in Malmö yesterday. Too late now. We catch another Oresundstag train, for a bit over an hour. Past yesterday's Lund, past increasingly white fields and towns to Älmhult, home of IKEA. The conductor warns us that the train will split in two so we have to move carriages forward. Unfortunately, there we no spare sets of chairs for all of us. The IKEA Museum showcases the history of the furniture company, along with temporary exhibitions. One of these was "Hacking IKEA," about using IKEA ob...

To Melbourne on the XPT sleeper

Excited by the prospect of reliving the experience of seeing my very first movie and hearing the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra perform it I bought tickets to The Empire Strikes Back in Concert in Melbourne back in February. Then I did nothing about actually getting there. Much as I love Melbourne, due to family commitments I didn't want to spend more than the Sunday away. Flights there and back made sense, but  my flight down to Melbourne in late October reiterated the fact that I usually don't enjoy descending into the city. And the concert was in December, a season of summer storms. I really didn't feel like driving the whole route alone and in a hurry, so that left one choice. The train. My very first trip up to Sydney from Melbourne was aboard the luxury Southern Aurora. Or it was supposed to be luxury. I wouldn't know because I spent the whole ride up very sick with the flu lying in the top bunk, unable to stay awake for my whole of night vigil. Now only...