Strolling the Botanics

It was a few weeks ago now that R and I took a walk in the Botanic Gardens. I especially wanted to check out how the 'volcano' site was progressing. It was April last year when we last took a look.

We walked past the charming and unusual St Thomas Aquinas church in Bromby Street.


Things have grown at the 'volcano', but I am not overly fond of cactus and nor is R.


Briefly, the volcano was designed by a director of the Royal Botanic Gardens, William Guilfoyle, for water storage. It fell into disuse and became overgrown and filled in. A couple of years ago it was uncovered and reinstated, a very worthy albeit expensive project. On the last visit, it had floating islands. I wonder what happened to them? It looks rather sterile now


Being the highest point in the gardens, it has good views.


Damn, I was a bit slow with the camera to capture the bare topped backpacker.


If you are at a high point, there is only one way to go and down leads you to the cafe, where we had some tea, noted the birdlife and entwined eels in the lake. The flag is flying on Government House, so Victoria's Governor is at home. A couple of weeks later he was to host the Queen for lunch and a reception.


We exited the gardens at the north east corner and across the road is Morell Bridge, perhaps better known as the Anderson Street Bridge.


I can remember when you could drive across the bridge, but now it is for foot and bicycle traffic.

We walked along the river bank for a while but we found the car traffic overwhelming and unpleasant. As soon as we could we crossed into the Queen Victoria Gardens and made our way to the St Kilda Road tram at the Arts Centre. This building is new and I believe it is mainly for soccer playing. I have no idea of its name, but some on ABC Radio refer to it as the Not Round Ground rather than its commercial name.


If you want to see more photos of the Botanic Gardens and along the riverbank, I recommend Gleeful as Frisky Librarian walks along the way to her place of work.