Have you ever just wanted to look at so many flowers that your brain might explode? Have you ever wanted those colourful displays of flowers to be arranged in themed garden beds?
Well, you need to get yo’self to Floriade, dawg! It’s Australia’s celebration of Spring! And one of Canberra’s most popular events of the year!
Flowers! And rides for the kids for when they get bored of looking at HUNDREDS AND THOUSANDS OF FLOWERS.
OK, so I had never been to Floriade before and I was expecting it to be pretty lame because it is kind of one of those Canberra jokes like “roundabouts” “Skyfire” and “Summernats!”. But I was actually pretty impressed. Maybe it is because I share the same interests as many of Canberra’s retirees? Maybe it is because I like colourful things? Maybe because admission was free? Maybe it is because I’ve already lived in Canberra since February , so I’ve acclimatised? I dunno. But I was impressed.
PRETTY!
More photos of flowers after the jump…
When I left DC before finishing my Masters, one of the professors there wrote in an email to me that it was unfortunate that I was leaving, for a number of reasons… one of them being that I would be missing DC at its best, during the spring when the cherry blossoms come out down at the Tidal Basin.
I hope I still get to see the cherry blossoms in DC one day, because I did love that city… but Canberra offered up a little consolation prize right on my own street last month, which was rather nice.
Staring down upon the fair denizens of Canberra, our communications corporation overlord is watching our every move, providing our every cell phone call and giving tourists what they want… something tall to ascend with a view of something. It is a universal fact that nothing draws tourists like the prospect of paying a large fee to go up a tall tower in elevators. They love it.
Gumtrees with silvery eucalyptus leaves. Red dirt. Blue lake. Blue sky. Very ‘Australian’ I guess.
Everything in Canberra is the “national” something or other. It’s weird, because in many cases, the Sydney or Melbourne non-”national” versions of attractions are bigger… like the zoos, for example. So I sort of had dismissed the botanic gardens here, thinking it would just be some baby-sized eucalpyt glen or something. But I went there the other day and it is REALLY fantastic. It’s amazing how they have somehow managed to replicate a number of the diverse ecosystems found in Australia in Canberra… especially the tropical rainforest gully. It was minus 6 celsius last night. That is not tropical. Yet the plants were not dead! Miracle workers.
Did I mention that it is free? And there are lovely spots for picnics or photo shoots too. The gardens are located on the slopes of Black Mountain in Acton, just behind the ANU.
But the best thing about the gardens? They smell AMAZING. All those eucalypts. Mmmmm.
The scattered collection of tents, camper vans and a shed, along with protest signs and a campfire, on the lawns of Old Parliament House (as well as a letterbox on a stake hammered into the ground) does look oddly out of place among Canberra’s preened lawns and (mostly bland) buildings. But the Aboriginal Tent Embassy has been in this spot in some form for almost 40 years, and serves the purpose of reminding us that there is still ‘unfinished business’ between Indigenous Australians and those who have settled in this country over the past 230-or-so years.
If you want to read more about the Tent Embassy, its objectives, and some of the controversy around it over time, Wikipedia is fairly comprehensive and there’s also good info from the National Museum.
Oh, and FYI, it’s also NAIDOC week this week, celebrating Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and their cultures.
I love old buildings. So Old Parliament House is probably my favorite Canberra building. Dark wood floors, leather seats in the chambers, high ceilings and all. Sure, New Parly has its own special something… it’s big. The roof is made from grass. Etc. But Old Parly has about as much history as you can find in a city that is as young as Canberra. It’s also home to what I think is the best museum in Canberra, the Museum of Australian Democracy. (That’s a bit of a testament to Canberra not having particularly good museums compared to other world capitals… but we also once again have a pretty short parliamentary history). I especially love the 1970s style broadcasting booths in the old Press Gallery. Groovy.
Copies of Hansard in the old Opposition Party Room
House of Reps
Unfortunately, being winter, other parts of the House were not particularly pretty… like the extensive gardens. But I’m sure come Spring time they’ll be much more photogenic.
I love these carrot cupcakes with lime cream cheese icing! I baked them the other day for the first time in aaaaages. The recipe is from Nigella’s How to Be a Domestic Goddess, and they are basically my favorite cupcake recipe. I was a bit worried I wouldn’t be able to make them again, because I never actually owned that cookbook… it was one of my old housemate’s. But thankfully, the internet delivers, and you can find the recipe here on this lovely food blog.
I believe they have changed the icing to lemon cream cheese instead of lime cream cheese in the blog recipe. Lime is my preference and what I remember being in the Nigella book. I’m sure lemon would work, but lime is divine!
Oh… you may also be noticing that this photo does not appear to have been taken with an iPhone. OH YES! I HAVE REPLACED MY SLR! I only have my 50mm 1.4 lens to use, I need to save some more moolah to get a more general range zoom lens, but I’m back in the SLR game and it is wonderful! Expect more sharpness, less Hipstamatic!
When I say that I am currently attending my fourth university, it kind of doesn’t sound as impressive as I had hoped. It sounds a little like I keep getting kicked out for failing (which is totally not true! I’ve never even come close to failing a class, because I am an epic geek!). It’s especially weird because I haven’t even finished a postgraduate degree yet!
In case you are now wondering what I’m talking about… I went to the University of Technology, Sydney for my undergrad degree, but as part of that degree I did a semester abroad in London at the Harrow Media and Design campus of the University of Westminster. Then, as I’ve written about here, I started my Masters degree at American University’s School of International Service in Washington DC, but then decided to move back to Australia to finish it at the ANU because I couldn’t really afford to stay in the US for two years.
It’s been… a learning experience! But it means that I am somewhat of a university connoisseur and I’m always comparing what was done better or differently elsewhere etc. It’s probably super annoying.
Here are some photos of my fourth school, the rather attractive Crawford School of Economics and Government at the Australian National University. Out of the four universities I have been to, I’ve got to say that ANU is the only one that has had a really large, sprawling campus. My other universities have all been either urban or smaller campuses. It has also been the only one with a large proliferation of gumtrees…
