Royal Tasmanian Botanical Gardens

I love how they get to put ‘royal’ in front of things here.  It makes it sound very official, like it’s received a special distinction.  I don’t know if the Royal Tasmanian Botanical Gardens ever have received any kind of special award, but they sure deserve it.  They are magnificent!  The gardens were founded in 1818, which means they have some awesome mature trees.  This one is the biggest in the park, a Wellingtonia or Big Tree native to California.  Last time it was measured it was 36 metres, but these can grow up to 100 metres tall.

The conservatory was built in 1939. It is beautiful.

There is a beautiful fountain inside and a multitude of plants.  The light is amazing.

The kids were drawn immediately to the fountain, as most kids are.  I promise none of them fell in, though it looks like JitterBug is thinking about it!

It was so peaceful inside.  We spent a fair bit of time in here.  At one point I found SkeeterBug quietly enjoying the fountain.  Such a tranquil spot.  I sat down on a bench with a plaque on it that was in memoriam of someone who had loved the gardens and the conservatory.  So lovely.

Outside was a row of sunflowers with heaps of bumble bees buzzing around.  We don’t see these all that often, we usually see honey bees, so we watched them for awhile.

There’s just such a varied collection of trees and plants here.  Pictures don’t do it justice.  I am not a huge fan of botanical gardens.  We don’t seek them out wherever we go.  I’d read great reviews for this one so we stopped in on our way home from the chocolate factory.  I’m so glad we did!

I saw these and thought they looked familiar, and they were birch trees from North America!

I wanted to see the palm collection, I love palm trees.  I’ve always wanted to live somewhere with palm trees.  And now I do- our town in Victoria has them.  As we headed toward that section we came across this floral clock.  I assumed the clock hands would be stationary, but I was wrong.

As the kids climbed on the wall around the clock we realised the hands were moving!  

This is a Monument to the Blue Gum, according to the sign.  I can’t read the small print, but I think it came from a tree that had been cut down for some reason.  The colour of the wood is gorgeous.

I did not know that palm trees are not trees.  I’m shattered.

But I’ll survive.  Sigh.  I love palm trees.

Is this post long enough yet?  Does it have enough pictures yet?  No?  Here’s a couple more.

 

Once again, I’ll put more pictures in another post!

That Chocolate Factory

In Hobart there’s this chocolate factory.  You know the one.  Way back when we were considering whether we’d be able to do Tasmania during our ‘one-year trip’ (as the kids call it) I was looking at things to do and found out there was a chocolate factory here.  So it’s been on our list for awhile.  We were all ready to go on a Saturday morning and then discovered the visitor centre isn’t open on the weekends.  (Fortunately we figured that out before we drove all the way there!) It was a long weekend, which meant waiting a few days before we could get there.  The kids were in agony.  Absolute agony.  We tried not to enjoy it.

The visitor centre included some memorabilia that would probably bring out the nostalgia in some visitors.  I know that when I see sweets I used to love as a kid I get all nostalgic.  But these were all lost on me since there isn’t a lot of Cadbury in America.  (Shock!)  I only remember the eggs at Easter time.  America has that other chocolate maker that we won’t mention.

This picture freaked me out a little.  Why is there a hand on the cow’s head?  Just a hand?  Is it Halloween?  Oh, wait, that’s SkeeterBug’s hand.  :)  I love the look on JitterBug’s face.  Like he’s hiding something.  They all have their little visitor bags.  When you visit everyone is given these bags which have some literature and even some chocolate in them.  They were slightly excited.

We looked around while we waited for the next presentation to start.  Adults pay something like $4 to get in, kids are free. There’s a small shop area where you can buy all things Cadbury, and a small cafe where you can get lovely things like hot chocolate-y drinks. 

It was all quite underwhelming.  The visitor centre is in major need of a renovation.  In fact, just before we visited there was all kinds of talk of them getting millions from the government for just that renovation.  Apparently it’s not happening.  I’m not sure that’s the best use for tax dollars, anyway.  But they still really need a reno.  Wait, maybe they could spend their own money on it…right.

They had one of those souvenir coin machines.  The smooshed coin kind.  We started collecting these in America, the machines are at all the touristy places.  In America you are smooshing an actual penny.  Australia doesn’t have pennies anymore, so here you are smooshing a plain disc that is already in the machine.  Sometimes it’s penny-coloured.  Sometimes it’s silver.  (Yes, ‘smooshing’ is a technical term.)  There aren’t as many of these machines here, so we get excited when we see one.

See what I mean about underwhelming?  These were all just lined up on a table.  I’m not even sure what it all is.  We weren’t allowed to take pictures during the presentation.  They showed us various ingredients from the production process and gave us a taste of a couple of things.  They talked about the production process and showed us a video of the factory since you don’t actually get to see the factory.  Apparently they did tours years ago but it’s no longer allowed.  (Unless of course they were to do some renovations, but I’ve mentioned that already.)  The lady giving the presentation had obviously done it so many times that she could do it in her sleep.  She wasn’t all that enthusiastic, but she was very efficient.  She talked quite fast and threw so much information at us that everyone was in a bit of a daze by the end.

The best part, of course, was the on-site store.  Heaps of chocolate and other lollies at discount prices.  Slightly better prices than you’d find at the store when they’re on sale.

We let the kids loose with a certain amount to spend.  Decisions, decisions.  They didn’t have my favourite in stock, sniff sniff.  I love the Old Gold 70% dark chocolate.  They had some Old Gold (see those gold packages behind SkeeterBug?) but not the 70%.  That’s probably a good thing, I would have been tempted to buy a dozen or so!

We had very excited kids after we went through the store.  The car says children ‘under 5 only’ which I interpret as ‘5 and under’ because otherwise why would they put the ‘5’ on the sign?  Too confusing for kids who can read the number but not the rest of the words.  So LadyBug is in the car, and JitterBug apparently fears for his safety.  ;)  TurboBug was safely strapped into the Ergo.  We were not about to let him run wild in the chocolate store!

Never fear, he got his own box of mini chocolate eggs.  He was happy.

The factory’s actually out on this little peninsula.  During the presentation they explained what all the silos were for, most were for milk and others for sugar.  I wish I could remember all the statistics about how much chocolate they could make each week.  It was quite a lot.

When I ask the kids to tell people what their favourite part of Tasmania was, I always have to add ‘besides the chocolate factory’ because it was definitely a favourite for them!

Tahune AirWalk, part two

Here’s part one.

By the time we made it near the treetop walk we were getting tired, and the kids were starting to complain again.  Fortunately we ran into some people who pointed us in a different direction than the map was telling us to go.  We went in the back way to the airwalk, but it was closer and saved us a few steps.

It’s very hard to portray how high up we were.  The walkways were covered in chicken wire to make them less slippery.  Thank goodness, since it was raining off and on while we were there.  The railings on either side were at a safe height and there were no gaps, so I didn’t have to worry the kids were going to walk off the edge.  TurboBug rather enjoyed the sound his shoes made on the walkway, so I could always tell where he was.  ;)

This is the end of the cantilever.  There’s a picture of the whole thing if you scroll down a few pictures.

From the end you get this gorgeous view of the two rivers coming together.  These are the same two rivers we crossed on the swinging bridges earlier.

The space at the end of the cantilever is not a large space.  And of course, being the star attraction, it’s right where everyone wanted to be, so we had to move on before long.  TurboBug’s totally glaring at the guy taking our picture.  Love it.  (Shhh…come closer….can I just tell you that I’ve lost weight since then?  Yay!)

Here’s a shot of the whole cantilever portion of the airwalk.  You can see someone right at the end.  We were up above most of the trees.  I almost like this view of the rivers better than the one at the end of the walkway!

There was quite a bit of elevated pathway, more than I expected.

I love the way ferns appear from above.  Like giant green flowers.

We came upon this wishing tree.  You could throw a coin over the edge as you made a wish.  The idea was to get the coin to land on the top of the tree stump.  (Is it still called a stump when it’s this tall?)  The proceeds went to a charity.

I have to show you these mushrooms that were on the trail as we made our way down from the walkway.  Aren’t they cool?

This is the wishing tree from the ground.  Seems taller than it looked from the other picture!  The kids were wishing they could collect (and pocket!) the coins all over the ground.

The airwalk was hit with flooding a few years back.  See the bottom left picture?  That’s one of the swinging bridges we crossed. 

Complete change of subject…I managed to get a picture of a pademelon roadsign that day!  Yay!  I had never even heard of pademelons before we came to Tasmania.  They’re basically extra small wallabies.  Unfortunately we saw many, many of these as roadkill, but this was the only roadsign I remember seeing for them.  I’m thinking they need more signs.  Not that it would help.

I’m glad we went to the airwalk, though we thought it was a bit pricey.  There is another short walk you can do and some bike trails.  You can also camp there, and you can pay to do an Eagle hang glide. We thought this was a unique attraction and one we’d all enjoy, so it was worth the drive for us.