Canberra Part 8

Canberra Day 15: Botanical Gardens and Mr. Spokes Ride

Early in the morning we headed out. On our way, Alex spotted the dam being opened to release water from the river since it had rained the night before. Australia doesn't usually get that amount of rain so just one night of rain had made the water uncontainable. A rare occasion really. So much so that bikers and other drivers drove in to witness the sight, as we did. Beautiful! 

Moving on, I'm not kidding when I say Gardens. It was nothing like the Penang one. This was like a whole towns worth of gardens. There were 3 routes to walk- the main route and 2 more different routes for the Gardens plus a mountain trail. We picked to stay on the main path: we followed the brown cobbled road.

The steps took us down into the tropical forest area which was brilliant. Imagine 3 tiers. The top tier= cobbled path and other plants. The middle tier= tropical forest path(the one he's standing on). The bottom tier= a pretty stream running along the whole forest with tropical-ish plants overhanging it. Once you descend from the main path, the whole place becomes eeriely quiet and dim. 

We came across many junctions that forked into other routes.

We emerged into a clearing which turned out to be the Rock Garden. The scenery was so vast and beautiful on that plateau. With no Eucalyptus trees to block your view, you could see the bright blue sky for miles and the rocks gave such a nostalgic feeling as though they connected you to people in the distant past. The Gardens were wonderful because of this feeling. We were in there without anyone around most of the time. We would bump into some people after 20 minutes or so but their voices would quickly fade away as we moved past each other. It was as though we were exploring our very own. We moved deeper into the garden and found a sundial!! Imagine my excitement. We immediately checked if it was working and it was! It was exactly 12pm at that time. Gorgeous view and the winter made the bright sun's rays fall with a gentle warmth- the greatest time to enjoy the gardens.

We came to a mini waterfall. I quickly jumped on the rocks and made my way closer to the falling water. Ying stopped to have a drink of water. I could hear the calm and tranquil splashes on the pond. 

Suddenly without any warning, two ducks made a dive from above me and plonked into the pond to my left. They fled so quickly into the bushes and that was that. Ying was in his imaginary world zapping some giant flowers. On to larger things. Huge black hairy balls- no pun intended. 

We headed to the lake to take a Mr. Spokes ride. Canberra's Old Faithful was shooting high that day. High, high, high in the big blue sky.

There could not have been a more perfect day to bike by the lake! Except for the cold winter breeze that came at us freezing our unprotected fingers, the ride was spectacular!

The bike knew Ying's stage in his Phd. It granted him only a Ph. We'll come back next year and he'll have a D, hopefully. ;) Alas, the sun was setting. It was just nice. We headed back, PUFFING mind you! It wasn't until we arrived at the tiny slope heading up to the shed that we realised how out of shape we were. We puffed and puffed and couldn't even make it up. We kept sliding down after each push. GAH it was infuriating. In the end, we were told that we had a larger bike. LOL.

We ended the evening at Weston Park to look for kangaroos again. We spotted cockatoos as well.