Floriade & More

..... and now for something completely different

(from craft, that is)

On Tuesday, my DH and I set off on a road trip to Canberra, mainly to look at the gorgeous flowers at Floriade, but also to stop and look at sights along the way.

Our first stop was at Fitzoy Falls in the Southern Highlands.  These falls are quite high and go straight down to the bottom, and although there is a viewing platform, to really see them you have to lean out a little.  Ugh!  not this little scaredy cat!  It really doesn't help when you can see through the platform you are standing on and you're looking at the floor of the valley - eeeek!

This is a view of the top of Fitzroy Falls through the trees along the track. 

We then followed the track around to another lookout with more falls

but this time we were standing on solid ground - phew!

As we returned to the car and the continuation of our drive to Canberra, the rain started but luckily only lasted half an hour or so.  We arrived at our hotel in Canberra around 6.30pm and then met up with our good friend for dinner.

We joined him again on Wednesday for our walk around the gardens of Floriade.

The theme for Floriade this year was ANZAC day as it is the centenary year.  This wall was full of poppies that people were placing and the word 'reflection' was actually a mirror.

There are such a beautiful assortment of tulips planted in the gardens with under-plantings of other spring flowers.  Here we have gorgeous little pansies.

I love poppies as they always remind me of my grandmother who grew them in her front garden.

These interesting critters were walking around the gardens.

Looking across the beds of tulips.

The tunnel of flower lights were beautiful by day and night!

We had tickets to return for the night event which only runs over 5 nights.  Lots of pretty lanterns, colours and entertainment.  T'was just a wee bit chilly though with the cold coming straight from Antartica!  We were glad of some hot soup for a dinner snack.

We then headed back to our hotel for the night.

I'll be back with part 2 of our short break later.