Royal Botanic Gardens, Cranbourne -The Parklands - Saturday 6th October

Part 1

It's Spring time!!

What better time to visit the Royal Botanic Gardens in Cranbourne.

But guess what? That's right. It rained!!

Well, that's to be expected during Spring time in Victoria!

We met in the car park of Stringybark Picnic Area and set off along the 

meandering paths of the Cranbourne Gardens.

The sky was foreboding.

 (That's probably because the picture was under exposed 

to create a mysterious atmosphere.)

 We had raincoats so a foreboding sky was not going to stop us!

We did stop to look at the wedding tree in the above photo.

 And at something at the bottom of the scraggly gum tree.

 Oh, it was an orchid. Just one all by itself.

Here are some facts about the Gardens.

The total area of the gardens is 363 hectares and consists of heathlands, wetlands and woodlands. The land was inhabited by the Boonerwurung people prior to European settlement. In the 1820's the land was used to mine sand to help in the building of Melbourne. The military then owned and used the site from the 1889 to 1960. Various leases allowed for grazing, sand mining and timber collecting during this time. In 1970 the land was set aside as a division of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Melbourne and specialised in native plant research and conservation. The Gardens opened to the public in 1986.

 Another wedding tree. 

Mind you it could be called something else for all I know. 

When you walk at the back of the group, you tend to miss out on a lot of 

botanical information.

 A close up of the flowers of the wedding tree. They are very pretty.

 The path was wide and very easy to walk on.

 We reached the high point of the walk and climbed a bit higher.

 Trig Point.

 We ate morning tea underneath the tower next to the sign that said don't climb or sit near the tower during a thunder storm in case of lightening strikes.

Good thing there wasn't a thunder storm!

 Here are some views from Trig Point.

 The heathland expanded in all directions.

 There were signs of snakes sharing the path but we didn't see any.

 We continued walking along the path that passed lakes,

 and crossed through open grassland where once cattle grazed.

 It did start to rain.

You can see the rain drops on the lake.

 It was not far from our lunch spot

 but we had to make a quick stop to put on our rain coats.

A leisurely lunch was enjoyed under the shelter at the Stringybark Picnic Area.

Our walking club has been established for over 40 years and some of our members
aren't able to make it to all the walks planned during the year.

A big thank-you to Heather for organising this walk at a venue where everyone who could, joined us today for our walk around the Cranbourne Gardens.

It was great to see Jean and Dianna, a two of the Clubs longest serving members.

 After we finished our cups of tea,

we ventured around to the Australian Garden.

 But that's another story!

 Stay tuned for Part 2, to find out just what is sleeping in the window.

Post Script

I forgot to add the link for the walk stats.

So for all you statistical buffs out there here is the link.

For those who just want to know how far we walked, we walked just over 6 kms of the possible 10 kms worth of walking track available in the Parklands of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Cranbourne.

Here is a link to a map of the Parklands

Walkabouters Club of Victoria Inc.

A0019863A