Melbourne – Geelong Gardens

I spent 2 weeks just outside Melbourne at Werribee, this gave me plenty of time to visit Melbourne, Geelong and the surrounding areas. As part of this exploring I spent half a day in Geelong looking around the botanic gardens there, then almost a whole day at the Melbourne Royal botanic gardens. Both are well worth a visit if you’re in the area, especially the Melbourne gardens, they are enormous and I really should have perhaps allowed a couple of days to have a good look around them.

Both gardens were very well used, especially the Melbourne gardens, there were people everywhere and a wide variety of people, many obvious visitors from other countries and far flung places including myself but also a lot of locals. Including this rather unusual group of people.

Rather an eclectic group who had gathered for some croquet on a lovely Sunday afternoon.

 

I’m hoping these images aren’t too dark, I’m running the laptop with a very dark screen to try and save power. The joys of caravan life, it’s early afternoon and 11 degrees inside the van, after being away from the caravan park at Werribee for only a couple of days I’ve already had to start the generator today. It’s cold, dismal and rainy. I’m camped in an old volcano crater at Mt Franklin, a lovely free camp spot but man it’s cold.

Still on the up side the poor weather has given me the motivation to do a couple of things. I’ve just booked my van in with Spinifex to have an extra solar panel added, have my gel batteries swapped out for lithium and I’m getting a gas space heater installed. Still that’s not for about another 4 weeks. Four weeks to get to Brisbane. The gas heater can’t come quickly enough, at the moment I have thermals on, beanie and hoodie over my head, gloves and 2 pairs of socks with ugg boots. I think I need to bake something just to help warm the van a  little.

 

The colours in these were quite incredible, amazing iridescent oranges and reds, mixed with purples and greens. They reminded me of cabbages yet they were a think fleshy succulent.

I’m not really sure if that tree really made the cut to get it’s photo on here, but I’m a bit too cold to care at the moment. It was an interesting tree. But then again there was no shortage of interesting trees around the gardens.

 

 

 

Ok, it’s 5 o’clock in the afternoon now and it’s 5 degrees outside! I’m roasting some sweet potato and the vans now up to 12 degrees, Mmmm toasty warm.

 

This looks weird. It hasn’t been played with at all, just freaky colours, hows that white in the flowers almost  luminescent?

 

 

Black and white seemed apt for this old seat. See how much the tree has grown out beyond the original spot where it would have been in the semicircle of the seat. Then from no colour to intense colour, shame about the spiderwebs.

Now a couple more to end with, but these images are portrait rather than landscape and they show up very large on the page.