Botanic Gardens and Mt Ainslie.

Paul has his singing competition today.

Met Trish in hotel lobby at 9.30am and headed off to the Botanic Gardens. Strolled around for about one and a half hours. They are very reminiscent of the Dandenongs in Victoria. The gardens are located well up on Black Mountain but even so, they are set out for easy walking.

It was quite cold with an icy wind, but it was most enjoyable to wander amongst the extensive collection of Australian natives.
“The Australian National Botanic Gardens, on the lower slopes of Black Mountain in Canberra, has the world’s most comprehensive display of living Australian native plants”.

As with much of Canberra at present, there are many expansion and renovation works happening in the gardens, so this will also be worth re-visiting.

We returned to our starting point at 11.30am and decided to go to the cafe and have an early, light lunch.

After lunch we drove to the lookout at the top of Mt Ainslie. From this vantage point, one can see all of Canberra. From this vantage point one can see the War Memorial below, then Anzac Pde, Old Parliament House and New Parliament House. Walter Burley Griffin designed Canberra to have these types of alignments.

Our original agenda was to go to the singing comp at 1.15 and watch Paul but a message from Paul informed us that they were running behind schedule.

So, it was back to the hotel for a cup of tea and wait for Paul to let us know when he'll be 'on'. Unfortunately, he couldn't get the message to us, so we missed his heat - we'll have to wait to see him in Hobart in November…Read more